Analysis of Fission Products Using Capillary Electrophoresis with On-Line Radioactivity Detection

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Abstract
Capillary electrophoresis has been used to separate metal ions characteristically associated with nuclear fission. Indirect UV absorbance and on-line radioactivity detection were used simultaneously to monitor the analytes, The radioactivity detector consists of conical plastic scintillating material with the capillary passing through the center to provide a 4 pi detection geometry. The wide end of the cone is optically coupled to a photomultiplier tube, Transient isotachophoretic techniques were employed to stack large volumes of samples which had low specific activities. Radioactivity detection of Eu-152, and Cs-137 was achieved at the nanocurie level for 80-100 nL injections. The detector is approximately 80% efficient enabling samples resident in the detector window for 0.1 min to be reliably assayed. The separation of Cs-137 and Ba-137m isotopes, which are in secular equilibrium, was modeled to demonstrate the effects of the rapid decay of Ba-137m.