4.4 Article

Simple and sensitive determination of radium-226 in river water by single column-chromatographic separation coupled to SF-ICP-MS analysis in medium resolution mode

Journal

JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RADIOACTIVITY
Volume 220, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2020.106305

Keywords

Radium-226; SF-ICP-MS; River water; Small volume sample; Single chromatographic column separation

Funding

  1. National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology, Japan
  2. Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Japan
  3. State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, China [SKLEC-KF201703]

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This article describes a novel and simple method to measure ultra-trace Ra-226 in river water samples at fg L-1 (mBq L-1) levels as a means for surveying Ra-226 in an unintended contamination in river water. To simplify the procedure, a single column was used for separation and purification; 10 mL of AG 50W-X8 resin was packed into a 10 mL Eppendorf pipette tip, which was used as a separation column. A 500 mL sample solution was loaded, and interfering elements were removed with 80 mL 4 M HCl in 20% ethanol. Subsequently, Ra together with Ba was eluted by 20 mL 5 M HNO3 prior to SF-ICP-MS analysis; this allows the naturally existing Ba in water samples to be employed as a yield tracer for Ra-226 analysis. Using the medium mode of SF-ICP-MS, the instrumental detection limit of 380 fg L-1 (10 mBq L-1) was obtained. An extremely low method detection limit of 0.46 fg L-1 (0.02 mBq L-1) was achieved with 500-fold pre-concentration. Finally, the developed technique was applied to analyze natural water samples collected from Japanese rivers, in which the Ra-226 concentrations varied in the range of 0.7-49.6 fg L-1 (0.03-1.82 mBq L-1).

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