Usually, 1000 ml of the urine sample was placed in a beaker and wet ashed
by the addition of nitric acid. Evaporation occurred and a few drops of H202
were added by us until all the organics were driven off. At the end of the
wet ash the solution was placed in 2N HN03 and treated with FeS04 and ~a~02 in
The solution was
succession to convert all the Pu to the 4+ oxidation state.
Traces
of
U, Th and other
then contacted with Adogen - 364 to remove the Pu.
interfering
nuclides were removed with a few washings of the Adogen - 364
organic phase with 0.7N HN03. We anticipated only Pu in the sample to be
The estimated recovery of interferring elements was tabulated in
counted.
Table Two.
The Pu was bac’c extracted into an inorganic phase with a mixture of O.~M
Lj.c104 and 0.5 M HC1C)4. The combined extract was carefully evaporated to
The resultant residue was dissolved in a mixture of H~O, a
remove all HN03.
The
solution of sodium peroxydisulfate and a pinch of silver psrchlorate.
solution was then contacted with an extractive scintillator mixture containing
Naphthalene, HDEHP and PBBO in Toluene.
The scintillator, which held the Pu,
was transferred to a glass ampule and bubbled with oxygen-free argon. The
ampule was sealed while bubbling with argon to keep out air.
The sample was counted in our laboratory usi~g one of four liquid
scintillation counters built in 1983.
At the beginning and end of each scintillation count a 10,000 dpm 239PU
standard was examined and the peak channels were i~oted. The urine s;a?les
were counted for 200,000 seconds. Thus far, w? have been able to G.I.ilyz?6
individual plus the composite Marshallese urine samples. Over the l:SK ytar
we tested hundreds of quality control or chemical recovery samples ::,order co
perfect the technique.
Presently, we have only a few results for comparison to Bikini urine.
All results are tabulated in Table Three.
I will have four or five more
comparison samples when I ~~~it on August 16th.* One Majuro adult male
~f~ibited activity in the
Po region of the spectra. We are examining our
Po recovery which ~Q~uld have been negligible and I will report an this
Po in an average cigarette smoker’s urine is about 65
later. The level of
fCi 1-1. In addition, e~~no;o~~~;~e;;eu;;n;h~nd~~~ys~;l$ ~~;;o a few years will
contain about 1000 fCi 1
An example of one of the Bikini
~)~- lhaveincluded
thecomParison
Pu spectra in this figure.

results is given as Figure
Pu
spectra
and overlayed it on the
99~ctra1

The PERALS system was recently subjected to a synthetic urine quality
control test. We detected different levels of 238PU. The results were told
to us by Al Robinson of your laboratory.
He stated we were within a standard
deviation of 5 to 10% for the high range samples and within a standard
deviation of 20% for the 100 fCi range samples. The greater deviation for the
100 fCi range samples was due to the fact that we analyzed only one-tenth of
the sample volume. This would appear to be excellent.

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