title: Sample pretreatment in the determination of specific alpha emitters in drinking water using [Ba+Fe]-coprecipitation method.
abstract: The [Ba+Fe]-coprecipitation method is applied to measure gross alpha activity for radiological examination of drinking water in the laboratory. This method collects all the alpha-emitting radionuclides of interest (natural alpha emitters and transuranium elements) in a precipitate on a filter. This paper describes an investigation of sample pretreatment of the precipitate collected by the [Ba+Fe]-coprecipitation method for gross alpha activity determination. The aim of this preliminary work is to be a starting point to develop simple and rapid radiochemical procedures for specific alpha emitters (polonium, radium, thorium, uranium, plutonium and americium), in contrast to the sophisticated, expensive and time-consuming alpha spectrometry method. The sample pretreatment aspects considered include quantitative [Ba+Fe]-coprecipitation, two methods for precipitate treatment (leaching and complete destruction of the filter), and the determination of the alpha-emitting proportions present in the barium sulfate precipitate and acid solution obtained after precipitate treatment. Furthermore, a radiochemical procedure for (226)Ra determination was performed and finally, the sample pretreatment proposed in this work was summarized.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT - Dpto. Medio Ambiente), Avda. Complutense 22, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Suarez-Navarro
authors.affiliation: Centro de Estudios y Experimentación de Obras Públicas (CEDEX), Alfonso XII, 3, 28014 Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: luis.pujol@cedex.es.
authors.forename: Ll
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pujol
authors.affiliation: Univ Politecn Madrid (UPM), Dept Civil Engn Hydraul & Energet, ETSI Caminos, Profesor Aranguren, s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Suarez-Navarro
keywords: Alpha emitters.; Drinking water; Gross alpha; Radioanalytical methods; [Ba+Fe]-coprecipitation method