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Comparisons of soil pretreatment methods for SF-ICP-MS determination of ultra-trace level plutonium in water soluble and exchangeable fractions

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Abstract

In this study, we developed a method to evaluate the potentially bioavailable fraction of Pu in agricultural soils by determining their water soluble and exchangeable fractions. Three commonly used pretreatment methods were compared for their ability and performances to process the extracted solutions. Results showed that these three methods were able to obtain consistent Pu concentration results; however, based on the experimental performance factors, we considered that wet-ashing followed by Fe(OH)3 co-precipitation was the best pretreatment method, with which high 242Pu recoveries for the overall process were realized for the water soluble fraction (69.8%) and the exchangeable fraction (70.6%).

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan, and the Grant of Fukushima Prefecture Related to Research and Development in Radiological Sciences. Youyi Ni thanks the China Scholarship Council for offering a scholarship (201606010056) to support his Ph.D. study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Youyi Ni & Qiuju Guo

  2. Biospheric Assessment for Waste Disposal Team, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, 4-9-1 Anagawa, Inage, Chiba, 263-8555, Japan

    Youyi Ni, Jian Zheng, Hai Wang, Keiko Tagami & Shigeo Uchida

  3. Fukushima Project Headquarters, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, 4-9-1 Anagawa, Inage, Chiba, 263-8555, Japan

    Jian Zheng & Keiko Tagami

  4. School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, China

    Hai Wang

Authors
  1. Youyi Ni
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  2. Jian Zheng
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  3. Qiuju Guo
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  4. Hai Wang
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  5. Keiko Tagami
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  6. Shigeo Uchida
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Correspondence to Jian Zheng or Qiuju Guo.

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Ni, Y., Zheng, J., Guo, Q. et al. Comparisons of soil pretreatment methods for SF-ICP-MS determination of ultra-trace level plutonium in water soluble and exchangeable fractions. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 315, 643–651 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-5700-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-5700-0

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