Study on liquid scintillation technique for bioassay of plutonium

Simple, rapid and sensitive methods are very important for the bioassay of plutonium. In this work, modern liquid scintillation technique combined with selective extraction separation and α/β pulse decay discrimination were studied and evaluated for the bioassay of plutonium. After sample decomposition and partial evaporation, cyclohexanone and trialkylphosphine oxide (TRPO) were used for the separation of plutonium from matrix. Several different cocktails were tested for liquid scintillation analysis of urine samples. The minimum detectable activity (MDA) of this method was estimated to be 0.01 Bq/500ml urine with 100 minutes measuring time and 3σ confident level. (author). 21 refs., 1 figs., 4 tabs