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Development and evaluation of a plastic scintillating resin for radioactive tin determination

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Abstract

In the next few years, a large number of nuclear facilities will be closed. This will involve the measurement of large amounts of nuclear wastes during the decommissioning process. This large amount of samples to be decommissioned will require the use of rapid and economical techniques. In this sense, PS resins appear as a good option since they unify separation and measurement preparation in a single step, reducing time and reagents. The objective of this study was to develop a PS resin for the measurement of radioactive tin, especially 126Sn, one of the main responsible of the dose in the future. The study optimizes the PS resin preparation (TBP is used as the extractant, Crosslinked plastic scintillator as the support and an 80% extractant solution for the impregnation) and the tin separation medium (2 M HCl) from described interferences. The detection efficiency was established using a calibration based on the radionuclide energy. Finally, a real sample, coming from the reprocessing of fission products, was analyzed obtaining quantitative retention and quantification errors lower than 5%.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO) for financial support, under CTM2017-87107-R, and the Catalan Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Uiversitaris i de Recerca (AGAUR) for financial support, under 2017-SGR-907. The authors also thank Philippe Cassette for providing the partially treated reprocessing sample.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Analytical Chemistry, University of Barcelona, Martí i Franqués, 1-11, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Ignasi Villarroya, Ariadna Ferradal, Héctor Bagán, Alex Tarancón & José F. García

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  1. Ignasi Villarroya
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  2. Ariadna Ferradal
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  3. Héctor Bagán
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  4. Alex Tarancón
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  5. José F. García
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Correspondence to Héctor Bagán.

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Villarroya, I., Ferradal, A., Bagán, H. et al. Development and evaluation of a plastic scintillating resin for radioactive tin determination. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 321, 207–215 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06552-3

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