Quantitation of Transuranium Elements in High Activity Waste (HAW) Using Alpha/Beta Liquid Scintillation Counting and Extractive Scintillators

Determining the content of transuranium elements, Americium (Am), Plutonium (Pu), Neptunium (Np), and Curium (Cm) in the nuclear fuel cycle and in nuclear radioactive waste is important for both economic and human toxicity reasons. The major concern is processing the sample rapidly and quantitating these transuranium alpha emitters in the presence of 10 fold excess of beta emitting contaminants. The combination of alpha/ beta discrimination with a Packard Tri-Carb Liquid Scintillation Analyzer employing the Pulse Decay Analysis (PDA) technique and extractive scintillators allows the quantitation of a small concentration of alpha radionuclides in the presence of a large excess of beta emitters without an excessive amount of sample preparation. Both the pulse decay analysis method and extractive scintillator performance are discussed.