Use of l-cysteine for minimization of inorganic Hg loss during thermal neutron irradiation

摘要

Thermal neutron irradiation experiments performed with cellulose-based l-cysteine-treated and untreated Hg standards showed Hg losses of 59–81% for untreated standards but only about a 0.2% loss for treated standards. These results and others for multielement standards showed that Hg loss is highly dependent on total mass and placement of materials in the irradiation vessel and that distribution of volatilized Hg was fairly uniform throughout the sample-containing region of the vessel. Polyethylene trapped volatile Hg much more efficiently than cellulose and a multielement standard containing inorganic Se selectively trapped Hg lost from a co-irradiated multielement standard containing Hg.