Determination of 90 Sr in milk by solvent extraction of 90Y (author's transl)

Abstract

In order to replace the conventional method using violent fuming nitric acid, a new method for the determination of 90 Sr in milk has been developed by using the solvent extraction with bis (2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid (HDEHP). The daughter nuclide 90Y in a radiochemical equilibrium with its parent 90Sr was extracted with 2:1 HDEHP-toluene from the acid solution (1M HCL) of milk ash sample prepared by dry-ashing. After stripping with 8M HCL, 90Y, together with stable yttrium added as carrier, was precipated as oxalate to prepare beta-counting source. The radiochemical purity was confirmed by decay curve. The decontamination of strontium was checked by applying non-dispersive fluorescence X-ray analysis using 133Ba as irradiating source. Bone samples of cow were also analyzed by the same method and the results were compared with those obtained by other methods. The duplicate crosschecking analyses of finely ground bone samples were carried out to examine the effectiveness of this method. This simple new method was found to be very effective for the routine analysis of 90Sr in these samples.