Rapid column extraction method for actinides and 89/90Sr in water samples

The SRS Environmental Laboratory analyzes water samples for environmental monitoring, including river water and ground water samples. A new, faster actinide and Sr-89/90 separation method has been developed and implemented to improve productivity, reduce labor costs and add capacity to this laboratory. This method uses stacked TEVA Resin(R), TRU Resin(R) and Sr-Resin(R) cartridges from Eichrom Technologies (Darien, IL, USA) that allows the rapid separation of plutonium, neptunium, uranium, americium, curium and thoriurn using a single multi-stage column combined with alpha-spectrometry. By using vacuum box cartridge technology with rapid flow rates, sample preparation time is minimized. The method can be used for routine analysis or as a rapid method for emergency preparedness. Thorium and curium are often analyzed separately due to the interference of the daughter of Th-229 tracer, actinium (Ac-225) on curium isotopes when measured by alpha-spectrometry. This new method also adds a separation step using DGA Resin(R), (diglycolamide resin, Eichrom Technologies) to remove Ac-225 and allow the separation and analysis of thorium isotopes and curium isotopes at the same time.