Determination of ultratrace-levels of 99Tc in low-level radioactive waste samples using ICP-QMS

This paper proposes a rapid, accurate method of measuring Tc-99 in low-level radioactive waste using microwave digestion, TEVA resin for chemical separation, and inductively coupled plasma-quadrupole mass spectrometry (ICP-QMS). The minimum detectable activity of ICP-QMS for the determination of Tc-99 was 8.5 mBq g(-1) (13.6 pg g(-1)). The proposed method achieved chemical recovery of 88 % and with sensitivity superior to that of alternative radiochemical methods (e.g., liquid scintillation analyzer or LSA) when the data acquisition time for identical, low-concentration samples was taken into account.