Simultaneous Plutonium and Uranium Isotopic Analysis from a Single Resin Bead - A Simplified Chemical Technique for Assaying Spent Reactor Fuels

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Abstract
The method uses basic anion resin to adsorb plutonium and uranium from 7–8 M HNO3 solutions containing dissolved spent reactor fuels. After equilibrating the resin with the solution, a single bead is used to determine the isotopic composition of plutonium and uranium on sample sizes as small as 10−9 to 10−10 g of each element per bead. Isotopic measurements are essentially free of isobaric interferences and fission product contamination in the mass spectrometer is eliminated. A very small aliquot of dissolver solution containing 10−6 g of U and 10−8 g of Pu is sufficient sample for chemically preparing several resin beads. A single prepared bead is loaded onto a rhenium filament and analyzed in a two-stage mass spectrometer using pulse counting for ion detection to obtain the high sensitivity required. Total quantity of the elements, in addition to isotopic abundances, can be determined by isotope dilution. Other areas where the method may be useful are: in plutonium production, isotope separations, and for trace detection of contamination on reactor parts.