Preparation of a tritiated glucose reference material and standardisation by the TDCR technique

Abstract

Organically-bound tritium (OBT) present in the environment represents a proportionately higher hazard than tritiated water due to the increased latency time in the body when ingested. Reference materials are required in order to demonstrate the validity of analysis techniques used to determine the levels of OBT in environmental monitoring programmes. This work describes the production and certification of a new environmental radioactivity standard of OBT which may be used as a reference material in validating such monitoring programmes. Rather than 3H-thymidine, 3H-d-glucose is proposed as an alternative starting material with demonstrated improvements in the medium-term stability when stored at room temperature. At the time of first measurement, no tritiated water could be detected in the standard material, and these tests were repeated twice over a 4-month period with the same result. In addition, the process for standardising the material has been improved via the application of the triple- to double- coincidence ratio (TDCR) technique.