Laser Induced Luminescence Method for the determination of Soluble Uranium in Surface Soil

Abstract

This paper describes a laser fluorimetric method for determining soluble uranium in soil samples involving measurement of fluorescence in solution without prior separation of matrix and the results are compared with those obtained by the conventional fluorimetric method which involves prior matrix separation. The fertilizer used soil has shown relatively high content of uranium compared to the manure used soil while the non-agriculture soil near to both these types of agriculture soils have shown similar and low content of uranium. The impurities in the soil sample are identified qualitatively by spectrographic method and the identified impurities are quantitatively determined using atomic absorption spectrometric method and the affect of the impurities on the fluorescence of uranium is quantified. Though the impurities considered here are specific to the soil samples, the methodology described for quantification of effect of impurity on fluorescence of uranium is general and is applicable to any other matrix as well.