Characterization of spent nuclear fuels by an online combination of chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques

The determination of the burn-up is one of the essential parts in post-irradiation examinations on nuclear fuel samples. In the frame of national and international research programs the analysis of the isotopic vectors of uranium, plutonium, neodymium and some other fission products and actinides was carried out in the Hot lab of the Paul Scherrer Institute in the last years by using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled online with an inductively coupled plasma quadrupole mass spectrometer. In the meantime a multicollector ICP-MS, suitable for high precision isotope ratio measurements, was installed within the Hot lab and has been used now in combination with a chromatographic separation system for the first time for burn-up determinations of nuclear fuel samples. The results of these investigations, a comparison of both methods with the classical technique for burn-up analyses (thermal ionization mass spectrometry), the advantages and limitations of the methods and the accuracy and precision of this type of analyses are presented in the paper. (author)