A new highly enriched 233U reference material for improved simultaneous determination of uranium amount and isotope amount ratios in trace level samples

A highly-enriched U-233 reference material (>0.99987 n(U-233)/n(U)) has been prepared and characterized for use as an isotope dilution mass spectrometry spike. An ion exchange separation was performed on 1 g of high purity U-233 to further reduce trace amounts of contaminant Pu in the material. The purified U-233 was then prepared as a master solution which was analyzed for molality of uranium by modified Davies and Gray titration. A portion of the master solution was quantitatively diluted and dispensed for reference material units. Selected units were analyzed for verification of uranium amount and to characterize uranium isotope amount ratios by multi collector inductively couple plasma mass spectrometry. Modelling of spike-corrected isotopic data show that the new spike will enable simultaneous measurements of uranium amount and isotope amount ratios with resulting uncertainties that are substantially less sensitive to over spiking than widely used U-233 certified reference materials.

Automated summary

A highly enriched U-233 reference material was prepared and characterized for isotope dilution mass spectrometry spike. Through ion exchange separation and specific analytical methods, trace amounts of contaminants were effectively reduced, leading to improved accuracy and precision in mass spectrometry analysis.