Experience gained through the intercalibration programme for low-level alpha-spectrometric measurements

Abstract

For the past decade the International Laboratory of Marine Radioactivity at Monaco has been engaged in organizing several intercalibration exercises of radionuclide measurements on various matrices of marine origin. The comparisons of the results obtained in different series of the intercalibration exeercises show that, while the comparability of the plutonium measurements has considerably improved in recent years, the americium measurements do not yet compare favourably transuranic measurements, especially those for americium at low-levels, should still be continued in the future. These series of the intercalibration produced valuable reference materials for which probable concentrations of transuranic nuclides are known. The importance of intralaboratory analytical quality control by using these materials are emphasized for achieving sufficiently consistent and reliable results.