Abstract
A method for determination of 226Ra and 228Ra in environmental samples using the α-β coincidence liquid scintillation counting (LSC) has been developed. Radium were preconcentrated from environmental samples by coprecipitation with BaSO4, then purified from others radionuclide interferences using the cation column exchange (Bio-Rad AG 50 W-X4 resin with 200-400 mesh size and H+ form) and operating in warm temperature which is between 70-80oC. Then, the Ba(Ra)SO4 precipitate was filtered through the Millipore filter paper, dried and weighed to calculate chemical yield. The activity concentration of radium isotopes in mixture of liquid scintillation cocktails were measured using LSC after being stored for over 21 days to allow the growth of the progeny nuclides. The method has been validated with a certi-fied reference material supplied by the International Atomic Energy Agency and reliable results were obtained. The radiochemical yields for radium were 59% - 90% and recovery was 97% and 80% for 226Ra and 228Ra, respectively. Sixteen seawater and fish flesh samples collected in Kapar coastal water have been analyzed with the developed method. The obtained radium activity concentrations in seawater were in the range of 02.08 ± 0.82 mBq/L to 3.69 ± 1.29 mBq/L for 226Ra and 6.01 ± 3.05 mBq/L to 17.07 ± 6.62 mBq/L for 228Ra. Meanwhile, the activity concentrations of 226Ra and 228Ra in fish flesh were in the range of 11.82 ± 5.23 – 16.53 ± 6.53 Bq/kg dry wt. and 43.52 ± 16.34 – 53.57 ± 19.86 Bq/kg dry wt., respectively.
Highlights
IntroductionThe most common methods for determining radium isotopes are alpha spectrometry [1,2], gamma spectrometry [3,4,5], Cerenkov counting [6] and liquid scintillation counting [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]
Radium is commonly measured using a various analytical procedures and equipments
Activity concentrations of 226Ra and 228Ra in certified reference materials and seawater were measured simultaneously by liquid scintillation counting (LSC) after standing more than 21 days to reach the secular equilibrium between parents and its daughters
Summary
The most common methods for determining radium isotopes are alpha spectrometry [1,2], gamma spectrometry [3,4,5], Cerenkov counting [6] and liquid scintillation counting [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. The liquid scintillation counting (LSC) provides detection efficiency up to 100% for unquenched samples and intrinsically high background count rate compared with other counting methods [20]. Through LSC methods radium in mineral waters [22], contaminated rivers [8] and phosphogypsum samples [23] can be measured. The aim of the study is to develop a simple method for determination of 226Ra and 228Ra in environmental samples using the α-β coincidence LSC. The present method is applied to some environmental samples and certified reference material prepared by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for procedure validation
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