Simultaneous determination of plutonium and americium in biological and environmental samples

A radiochemical method is presented to determine the specific activity of 238Pu, 239/240Pu and 241Am from the global fallout in environmental and biological samples. The radiochemical recovery for human livers, plant tissues (bran) and soils is given. The resolution of the alpha spectrum was for soils 30-40 keV and for livers and brans 40-60 keV. To facilitate the wet ashing of large amounts of bran (15 kg), a fermentation process was employed. The procedure was tested by using NBS standard reference material and subsequently applied for the determination of Pu and Am from the global fallout in livers, brans and soils. (author) 20 refs