Emission Spectrographic Carrier Distillation Technique for the Determination of Trace Elements in Nuclear Fuel Materials

摘要

The quality control of high purity uranium materials used for nuclear reactor fuel requires sensitive analytical methods. These methods should be capable of detecting and measuring trace level metallic impurities specially those having large neutron absorption cross-sections. Emission spectrography is widely used in quality control of nuclear fuels for the determination of trace metal impurities in uranium. Carrier distillation technique with a suitable carrier is commonly used for routine quantometric analysis. The limits of detection obtained by other methods involving chemical separation and pre-concentration are better than those for the carrier distillation technique. However, chemical separations are cumbersome and time-consuming and increase the possibility of contaminating the sample. Therefore, non-destructive techniques are preferred for routine analysis. In this study, investigations were made to evaluate various carrier distillation techniques and to develop a suitable technique for achieving optimum sensitivity. A mixed silver chloride gallium fluoride carrier was developed which was found to be the most suitable for obtaining adequate sensitivity for direct determination of trace impurities of routine interest in a single operation. Employing this technique about three thousand samples were analyzed. (Atomindex citation 14:757929)