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Total Mercury Analysis of Radioactive Waste Containing Multiple Mercury Species

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Abstract

A direct mercury analyzer (DMA) was used to analyze total mercury in radioactive waste samples containing methylmercury and other forms of mercury including Hgo (elemental) together with inorganic ionic mercury species and complexes. These samples were also analyzed using Cold Vapor Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (CVAAS) and/or Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectroscopy (ICMS). Comparative statistical evaluation of the results from spike solutions/simulants, liquid radioactive waste samples, and interlaboratory performance test samples demonstrated that the various methods generated accurate and/or equivalent total mercury data and equivalent precision (2σ ± < 20%). Triplicate total mercury analysis of an exemplar radioactive waste resulted in an average value of 54.1 mg/L (as Hg) using CVAAS, 55.1 mg/L using ICPMS and 56.0 mg/L using DMA. A primary advantage of the DMA in a radioactive environment is avoiding multi-step, labor-intensive, time-consuming and waste-producing sample preparation protocols needed for CVAAS and ICPMS. DMA was determined to be the preferred method for measuring total mercury in the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) radioanalytical laboratory based on analytical performance combined with ease of use in a radiological containment unit.

Article highlights

Direct mercury analysis (DMA) is well matched to the analytical constraints for radioactive samples.

DMA accuracy & precision were similar to other methods.

Deployment of DMA reduced analysis time, worker exposure, and radioactive waste generation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the efforts of Sharon Gleaton and Lawrence Cheatham for preforming the analyses of samples on the DMA instrument. Additionally, we would like to thank Don Pak for modifying the DMA instrument for ease of use in a contamination area.

Funding

Savannah River National Laboratory is operated by Battelle Savannah River Alliance for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. 89303321CEM000080. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy Environmental Management Office of Technology Development under Contract Number DE-AC09-08SR2 and the US Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration in collaboration with Savannah River Remediation under Contract No. DE-AC09-09SR22505. Publisher acknowledges the U.S. Government license to provide public access under the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Building 773-A, 29808, Aiken, SC, USA

    Brian B. Looney, Leigh W. Brown, Mark A. Jones & Thomas L. White

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  1. Brian B. Looney
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  2. Leigh W. Brown
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  3. Mark A. Jones
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  4. Thomas L. White
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Brian B. Looney, Leigh W. Brown, Thomas L. White and Mark A. Jones. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Thomas L. White and all authors contributed to editing and revising the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Brian B. Looney.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could influence, or appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Looney, B.B., Brown, L.W., Jones, M.A. et al. Total Mercury Analysis of Radioactive Waste Containing Multiple Mercury Species. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 331, 4817–4828 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-022-08513-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-022-08513-9

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