High sensitivity measurement of 224Ra and 226Ra in water with an improved hydrous titanium oxide technique at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory

The existing hydrous titanium oxide (HTiO) technique for the measurement of Ra-224 and Ra-226 in the water at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) has been changed to make it faster and less sensitive to trace impurities in the HTiO eluate. Using HTiO-loaded filters followed by cation exchange adsorption and HTiO co-precipitation, Ra isotopes from 200 to 450 tonnes of heavy water can be extracted and concentrated into a single sample of a few millilitres with a total chemical efficiency of 50%. Combined with beta-alpha coincidence counting, this method is capable of measuring 1.5 x 10(-3) mu Bq/kg of Ra-224 and 3.3 x 10(-3) mu Bq/kg of Ra-226 from the Th-232 and U-238 decay chains, respectively, for a 275 tonne D2O assay, which are equivalent to 4 x 10(-16) gTh/g and 3 x 10(-16) gU/g in heavy water. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.