Gas-phase plutonium nitrate anion complexes were produced by electrospray ionization (ESI) of a plutonium nitrate solution. The ESI mass spectrum included species with all four of the common oxidation states of plutonium: Pu(III), Pu(IV), Pu(V), and Pu(VI). Plutonium nitrate complexes were isolated in a quadrupole ion trap and subjected to collision-induced dissociation (CID). CID of complexes ...

Israel has used the Dimona reactor in the Negev Desert since the 1960s for unsafeguarded plutonium production. Estimates of cumulative historic production have been very uncertain, however, because the power level of the reactor is unknown, and there is a lack of detail about the reactor design. This analysis presents new estimates of historic plutonium production in Israel based on neutronics ...

Plutonium releases from the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratory in Livermore, California resulted in the contamination of sewage sludge. Two research models to address the potential public health impacts of plutonium-contaminated sludge distribution were undertaken. One model was a collaborative approach that emphasized incorporating local knowledge into the scientific analysis and fostering the gr...

Unusually high concentrations of americium and plutonium have been observed in a sediment core collected from the eastern Lombok Basin between Sumba and Sumbawa Islands in the Indonesian Archipelago. Gamma spectrometry and accelerator mass spectrometry data together with radiometric dating of the core provide a high-resolution record of ongoing deposition of anthropogenic radionuclides. A pluto...

In the framework of the Fourth Generation program, the CEA studies a new concept of Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR) named ASTRID [1]. The reference fuel chosen for the reactor starting is uranium and plutonium mixed oxides. This type of fuel had been fabricated until 1999 during the PHENIX (French SFR prototype) operation. The industrial process led to homogeneous uranium /plutonium distributions in ...

Solid-phase extraction of plutonium in different individual and mixed oxidation states from simulated groundwater (pH 8.5) was studied. The extraction of plutonium species was carried out in a dynamic mode using DIAPAK C16 cartridges modified by N-benzoylphenylhydroxylamine (BPHA). It was shown that the extent of recovery depends on the oxidation state of plutonium. The extraction of Pu(IV) was...

Owing to the rich history of heavy element production in the unique high flux reactors that operated at the Savannah River Site, USA (SRS) decades ago, trace quantities of plutonium with highly unique isotopic characteristics still persist today in the SRS terrestrial environment. Development of an effective sampling, processing, and analysis strategy enables detailed monitoring of the SRS envi...

The objective was to study plutonium partitioning between immobile and mobile humic materials at the water-solid interfaces. Immobilization of the humic materials on solid supports was performed in situ using self-adhesive silanized humic derivatives. The presence of the humic adlayers on solid supports was shown to significantly enhance Pu sorption and its retention under both steady state and...

The development of techniques for the accurate quantification of the plutonium content in spent nuclear fuel would provide significant advances for shipper/receiver differences and for input accountability at reprocessing facilities. Several techniques have been studied previously for achieving this goal but these have met with limited success. Due to the radioactive nature of spent fuel, decay...

This paper presents a method for calculating a priori uncertainty intervals for plutonium interpretations by fission track analysis (FTA) of human urine samples. The derivations of the method are adaptable to estimating uncertainty intervals of analysis of single samples, based on calibration data obtained from multiple samples spiked over a range of concentration. The data used in last year’s ...