Analysis and speciation of the tritium in environmental matrices

This study deals with environmental monitoring. The main aims are (i) the optimisation of the analytical procedure for the tritium in organic form determination, and (ii) the identification of the tritium bearing molecules which are responsible for its transfer from the environment to man. The study was divided into three stages. First an analytical method was developed to determine hydrogen content of several samples, which is a key element to calculate accurate organically bound tritium activities. Secondly, the impact of the organically bound tritium fractions separation (labile exchange) for the determination of the representative fraction of the level of environmental tritium activity was then evaluated. For that, the amount of solubilised sample was estimated. Finally, the speciation of tritium in environmental samples was investigated. Several molecules classes and organic compounds dissolved in the labile exchanges solvent were identified. The results show that the distribution of tritium in organisms depends on both properties of the chemical bond in which it is involved and chemical properties of tritium bearing molecules. The identified compounds belong to the molecules classes such as carbohydrates or amino acids, constitutive of living organisms. It would now be of interest to study the tritium distribution in an environmental sample to target molecules of interest and study the impact of tritium from the environment to man. (author)