Method for rapid, high sensitivity tritiated water extraction

摘要

We have developed a thermal vacuum desorption process to rapidly extract water from environmental samples for tritium analysis. Thermal vacuum desorption allows for extraction of the moisture from the sample within a few hours in a form and quantity suitable for liquid scintillation counting and allows detection of tritium at the levels of <2 Bq/L of milk, <0.5 Bq/gm of vegetation, and < 0.5 Bq/gin of soil. We developed a prototype unit that can process batches of twenty or more samples within 24 hours. Early data shows that a high percentage of water is extracted reproducibly without enrichment or depletion of the tritium content. The quench coefficient of the extracted water is low allowing for accurate, direct liquid scintillation counting. Excellent comparison has been observed with results using freeze-dry lypholization as the water extraction method.