Determination of Sr-89 and Sr-90 in fresh cow milk and raw urine using crystalline synthetic tunnel manganese oxides and layered metal sulfides

摘要

Sr-89 and Sr-90 are both fission products of high radiotoxicity, which can be released in significant amounts in the event of a nuclear accident. Radiostrontium isotopes will follow calcium all along the food chain and, after ingestion, accumulate in the bones. Therefore, it is imperative to be able to determine Sr-89 and Sr-90 in raw milk samples in case of an accidental situation to evaluate the dose given by both radionuclides to the population. Several methods exist for conducting Sr-89 and Sr-90 determination. However, most of them use at least one chromatographic step to purify strontium. This, unfortunately, increases the analytical time before the results can be released to the authorities. In addition, they often use liquid scintillation counting to determine the Sr-89 and Sr-90 activities, a method which can handle only one sample at a time. Here we propose using synthetic tunnelmanganese oxides such as cryptomelane and todorokite and layered metal sulfides to selectively extract strontium from fresh milk and raw urine in a batch sorption method. We found that the method is very quick and yields very pure sources of (radio)-strontium, which can be counted in a proportional counter. Data (counts per minute) from the counter were fitted to a mathematical expression enabling the simultaneous determination of Sr-89 and Sr-90. Because a proportional counter often has several drawers, it is typically possible to measure up to 16 samples at a time. Since cryptomelane is a binding phase easily synthesized in a large quantity, we anticipate that this technique could be an interesting alternative to conventional solid phase extraction chromatography methods. (c) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.