A preliminary study for the determination of long-lived radionuclides (second transition group 4-d) in environmental samples by ion chromatography inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (IC-ICP-MS)

Artificial radionuclides range over all groups of the periodic table. Among these elements, fission products are a very important group, and when detected in the environment, they can give an indication of specific nuclear activities (e.g. reprocessing plants of spent fuel, weapon tests or nuclear accidents). The monitoring of these elements with appropriate analytical methods also allows migration and dispersion mechanisms in the environment to be studied. Furthermore, a need for analytical procedures for fission product determination becomes important for the nuclear industry for the characterization and inventory of a nuclear fuel. On the other hand, the complete determination of both the isotopic composition;and elemental concentration using mass spectrometry is hindered by the existence of some isobaric interferences, which can only be overcome by a chemical separation (e.g. ion chromatography). In this paper, the suitability of IC-ICP-MS for the simultaneous separation and on-line detection of light fission products such as Zr, Ru, Mo, Tc, Rh, Pd, Sb and Te has been studied. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.