Enhancing the EC's analytical capabilities for environmental sample analysis for nuclear safeguards purposes by the establishment of a new Large Geometry Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (LG-SIMS) laboratory.

Nuclear activities unavoidably leave fingerprints in the environment. Such fingerprints may consist of characteristic building structures, of typical supply lines or of minute releases of process material. In particular, the release of micron-sized aerosol particles to the immediate environment is very difficult to avoid completely, especially when nuclear materials are processed in larger quantities. These micro-particles contain the isotopic signature of the handled nuclear materials. This allows nuclear safeguards authorities with specialised sampling techniques and analytical laboratories to verify the completeness of a state's declaration and to check the consistency of measured material properties (i.e. isotopic composition) with declared operations at nuclear facilities. This methodology has been in particular applied to uranium enrichment facilities. At the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Centre's (JRC), Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU), uranium particle analysis for nuclear safeguards purposes has been performed on environmental samples since the late 90's with the EC Directorate General Energy (DG-ENER) as its main user. In recent years, significant efforts have been made to enhance the analytical techniques and processes. Recently, significant enhancements have been achieved in collaboration with a leading manufacturer of analytical equipment by implementing new purpose built systems for particle analysis in the field of Secondary Ion mass Spectrometry (SIMS). This paper describes the purpose and outlines the performance of a new analytical Large Geometry – Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (LG-SIMS) laboratory that has been established at JRC-ITU, jointly funded by the JRC and DG-ENER. The laboratory will mainly be used for analysing uranium bearing aerosol particles collected on cotton swipes during nuclear safeguards inspections, but it will also be involved in other safeguards related applications and nuclear forensics. This paper gives an overview of the capabilities and enhancements that can be expected from this new laboratory. It also describes the use of environmental sampling, followed by high performance trace analysis of particles, in the context of European nuclear safeguards.