In this article we present an analysis of special cases of certain types of radioactive waste and specificity of analytical methods which have been applied in the identification and quantification of contained radionuclides. In the article we present case studies in our work with radioactive waste that is stored in the central storage of radioactive waste in Montenegro, which is managed by Center for Ecotoxicological research Podgorica (hereinafter CETI). The scope of radioactive waste management is very complex and involves many individual stages. Radioactive waste can occur in many different forms. One of the major problems in radioactive waste management is to determine activity and/or activity concentration of radionuclides in radioactive waste. In many cases due to lack of information about initial activity, the only way is to determine the source activity by applying some of the classic analytical methods of analysis of radionuclides. In the case of radiation source which belongs in the category of sealed radioactive sources (SRS), this is the least problem, because SRS's are sources of relatively small dimensions and with well-defined geometries, which is usually cylindrical. In this case, even on the basis of dose rate measurement, source activity can be very well determined. Problems arise in cases of radioactive sources - radioactive waste in special form or shape. Some of these types of radioactive waste are compasses with fluorescent colors that contain Ra-226 and tritium as well as metal alloys for special purposes, which contain Th-232. In these cases we have a radioactive material which is located at several places on the body of the compass, or homogeneously distributed throughout the mass and volume of the metal parts. In both cases the geometry is unfavorable and requires special analytical approach. Due to the described problems, the analysis of gamma emitters we have been doing on HPGe detectors and the calibration of efficiency is performed using the point calibration standard with a mix of radionuclides while the tritium analysis was performed on a liquid scintillation counter. In this article, we described this analysis and all the specifics that followed this analytical approach. In all cases we got valid results, based on which we were able to determine and classify radioactive waste.
