Year
2002
Abstract
The Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC) with assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy began a program to evaluate environmental sampling capabilities at laboratories in Argentina and Brazil in June 1998. The program included staff training conducted in South America and the United States. Several laboratory evaluation exercises were also conducted using standard swipe samples prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a National Institute of Standards & Technology Standard Reference Material 1547, Peach Leaves. The results of these exercises demonstrated that several laboratories were capable of accurately determining the total uranium and uranium isotopic distribution in the peach leaves. To build on these successes, another exercise using standard swipe samples prepared by the IAEA was conducted. A total of 8 sets of 15 swipe samples were prepared and distributed to ABACC support laboratories and to two of the U. S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Network Work of Analytical Laboratories (NWAL) that support IAEA’s environmental sampling program. Throughout this project, the ABACC laboratories have shown steady progress in contamination control and improvements in their measurement capability. The results of these exercises demonstrate that ABACC now has support laboratories in both Argentina and Brazil that have the capability of measuring both the amount and isotopic composition of uranium at the levels expected in typical environmental samples (i.e., sub-microgram quantities).