Comparison of rapid liquid scintillation multivariate technique with conventional techniques for regular surveillance of water samples

Abstract

Liquid scintillation multivariate, gamma spectrometry and radiochemical separation techniques were used for estimating ³H, ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs in bore well samples. Using multivariate technique, ³H, ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs has been assayed in triple labeled samples. The same samples were also estimated by other routinely used techniques, like gamma spectrometry to estimate ¹³⁷Cs, radio-chemical separation followed by subsequent counting using GM counter for ⁹⁰Sr. The samples were distilled for ³H and its activity was estimated using liquid scintillation counting with the prepared calibration curve. Our results show that liquid scintillation multivariate is an easy and rapid method capable of estimating ³H, ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³⁷Cs in water samples with ±10 % deviation for ³H and ±13 % deviation for ¹³⁷Cs. However, in case of ⁹⁰Sr the results obtained by conventional method and the simultaneous analysis by liquid scintillation multivariate technique are varying around ±29 %. This could be attributed to error introduced by matrix interference in the conventional analysis.