Year
2001
Abstract
Establishment of analytical techniques as verification measures for Np and Am has been required to IAEA because those are designated as special fissionable materials. The determination of the Pu/Cm ratio is also required in a part of the proposed non-destructive assay procedure to verify Pu in hulls from input dissolver of spent fuel and high active liquid waste (HALW) of reprocessing. Analytical methods for those elements have been implemented at Safeguards Analytical Laboratory (SAL) of IAEA. Special efforts were made toward implementing analytical techniques for Np/Am/Cm in the samples from input solutions and HALW of the reprocessing. A fraction of sample solutions of input/HALW passing through TOPO chromatographic column was used for Am/Cm determinations. Those elements were subsequently purified with TRU resin column, followed by alpha-spectrometry (Am/Cm). Whereas, Np was separated and purified with TEVA resin column directly from the original samples and measured by alphaspectrometry. The established methods include some quality assurance measures; employment of isotopic dilution techniques for Am/Cm with Am-243, and confirmation (correction) of Np recovery with Np-239 as daughter element of Am-243. High reliability was confirmed in the preposed methods for Np/Am/Cm in real safeguards samples despite the very small quantities involved.