Determination of the ²³⁴U isotope content in uranium-bearing materials using high-resolution gamma spectrometry

• Main Authors: Kutniy, D.V., Burdeinyi, D.D., Savchenko, N.N.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Національний науковий центр «Харківський фізико-технічний інститут» НАН України 2021
• Series: Вопросы атомной науки и техники
• Subjects: Experimental methods and processing of data
• Online Access: http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/195113

The paper presents an overview of the research into the available non-destructive methods of determining the ²³⁴U isotope content in uranium-bearing materials. An alternative approach to a problem of detector calibration by the characteristic “intrinsic” efficiency is proposed. Certified reference uranium-bearing materials CRM 969 and CRM 146 (a range of ²³⁵U enrichments studied was 0.3…93%) were used as test samples, measurements were carried out with a wide-range energy detector based on the high-purity BeGe 3830 germanium (Canberra, USA) with 38 cm2 area and 3 cm thickness. An approach used for the “intrinsic” efficiency calibration for the ²³⁴U analysis permits to decrease the measurement error to 7.5% in the whole range of ²³⁵U enrichment (from 0.3 to 93%) and ²³⁴U concentrations (20 to 9800 μg/g). The proposed method does not demand standard samples for equipment calibration and does not depend on the physical (chemical) form of the investigated material and measurement geometry.