Novel approach for strontium preconcentration from seawater and rapid determination of 89,90Sr in emergency situations

Abstract

A novel approach for rapid 89,90Sr determination in seawater samples is developed. For the first time in the radioanalytical application, the features of the synthetic zeolite Z4A and a highly selective material for Sr separation were synergically employed. Seawater composition significantly reduces Sr yield on highly selective solid-phase extraction materials, making the preconcentration step essentially important but laborious and time-consuming. To address this issue, the ability of zeolite 4A to concentrate the Sr from the seawater matrix was employed. With the proposed method, two important goals were achieved: (i) simple preconcentration of Sr that can be conducted directly at the sampling site, enabling a rapid procedure for 89,90Sr determination in emergencies, and (ii) high and stable Sr recoveries (89 ± 4%) necessary for lowering detection limits. Strontium is effectively separated from 1 L of seawater in less than 1.5 h, which is especially important in emergency situations, such as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. Minimum detectable activities achieved for 89Sr:90Sr activity ratio ∼10:1 were 0.74 Bq/L for 89Sr, and 1.47 Bq/L for 90Sr, detected by Cherenkov counting, 36–38 h after separation, and 30 min counting time.