Determination of total iodine and sample preparation for AMS measurement of I-129 in environmental matrices

A method is described for the measurement of total iodine and sample preparation for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurement of I-129. Samples were combusted in a stream of oxygen and the iodine liberated was collected in a trapping solution. Aliquots of the trapping solution were used to measure total iodine by gas chromatography and I-129 by AMS. The method was tested using standard reference materials 2709 San Joaquin Soil, 2711 Montana Soil and 2704 Buffalo River Sediment from the National institute of Standards and Technology, IAEA-375 soil from the International Atomic Energy Agency, a bovine thyroid sample from Gomel, KI and KIO3. The recoveries with respect to the reference values were between 89 and 100%. No tracers were used and no efficiency corrections were applied to these results.