A comparative study of alternative methods for 210Pb determination in environmental samples

The accurate determination of the levels 210Pb in environmental samples (e.g. atmospheric aerosols, waters, soils, biota, etc.) is essential due to its multiple applications geochronology, radiation protection, groundwaters flows, air masses movement, etc. For this purpose, it has been developed a novel and thorough study three alternative radiometric measuring methods activity concentrations several types samples. selected were low-level gamma spectrometry (210Pb), alpha-particle (via 210Po), Cherenkov counting 210Bi). This performed terms precision, linearity proportionality as well spent time, type matrix, showing most appropriate method measure each case. Several kinds analyzed such filters, sediments phosphogypsum (PG) matrices. These contain different measured by techniques carrying out radiochemical procedures when necessary. There not significant differences results obtained for methods. major precision was using spectrometry, but more expensive time consuming.