Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry

, Volume 307, Issue 3, pp 1757–1764 | Cite as

Application of neutron activation analysis to micro gram scale of solid samples

Article
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Abstract

An instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) procedure for analyzing extremely small samples was developed and applied to two kinds of extraterrestrial samples. A few mg of the Allende meteorite as well as the JB-1 basalt can work well as a reference sample for a relative method. To evaluate the applicability of this INAA procedure, detection limits are presented and compared with the elemental contents in a potential sample to be analyzed. The possibility of reuse of neutron-irradiated samples for mass spectrometry was noted by indicating degree of increase in isotopic abundance for noble gas and long-lived radioactive nuclides.

Keywords

Neutron activation analysis Relative method Magnetic spherule Kilabo chondrite 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. T. Sano (Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, KURRI) for calculation of the number of stable and radioactive nuclides produced by neutron irradiation. We are grateful to Prof. T. Ohtsuki (KURRI) for his help in the method for neutron irradiation of small samples. The authors express their gratitude to the members of the research reactor group in KURRI for the preparation and operation in the neutron irradiation. This study was supported by Kyoto University Global COE Program “International Center for Integrated Research and Advanced Education in Material Science” (to SS). This study was supported by a grant-in-aid from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (KAKENHI 25790081) in Japan for SS.

Supplementary material

10967_2015_4370_MOESM1_ESM.docx (534 kb)
Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 533 kb)

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Copyright information

© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2015

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Research Reactor InstituteKyoto UniversityOsakaJapan
  2. 2.Department of ChemistryTokyo Metropolitan UniversityTokyoJapan

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