Rapid analysis of U isotopes in vegetables using ICP-MS: application to the emergency U monitoring after the nuclear accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai-ichi power station

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry volume 292, pages171–175(2012)Cite this article

Abstract

After the nuclear accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai-ichi power station in March, hydrogen explosions and reactor building explosion resulted in releases of radionuclides in the environment. Severe radioactive cesium and iodine contaminations have been observed in fallout deposition samples and soils in the East Japan. Radioactive cesium, iodine, uranium, and transuranic radionuclides were set as the monitoring targets in food safety tests. However, so far, only radioactive cesium and iodine were daily measured and reported by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare. The tedious and time consuming conventional alpha spectrometric method hampered the emergency monitoring U contamination in foods. In this work, we propose a simple and rapid analytical method for 238U and 235U/238U isotope ratio analysis in fresh vegetables. This method was applied to the emergency monitoring of radioactive contamination after the nuclear accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai-ichi power station. The results showed no U contamination in fresh vegetables collected in Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures in April and May, 2011.

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Acknowledgment

This study was supported by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan.

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Affiliations

  1. Office of Biospheric Assessment for Waste Disposal, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, 491 Anagawa, Inage, Chiba, 263-8555, Japan

    Jian Zheng, Keiko Tagami & Shigeo Uchida

Authors
  1. Jian Zheng
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  2. Keiko Tagami
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  3. Shigeo Uchida
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Correspondence to Jian Zheng.

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Zheng, J., Tagami, K. & Uchida, S. Rapid analysis of U isotopes in vegetables using ICP-MS: application to the emergency U monitoring after the nuclear accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai-ichi power station. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 292, 171–175 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-011-1387-1

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Keywords

  • Uranium
  • Isotope ratio
  • Vegetables
  • SF-ICP-MS
  • Nuclear accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi power station