High sensitivity measurement of iodine-129/lodine-127 ratio by accelerator mass spectrometry

An iodine beam line has been set up at the AMS facility of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. This beam line has a high mass resolution magnet and a high energy resolution electrostatic analyzer to remove the interfering peaks. Reproducibility of 0.53% and precision of 1.1% attained after solving some problems and realigning the equipments again are better than those of the acceptance test. It was demonstrated that this beam title has excellent measurement linearity between 10(-10) and 10(-12) iodine isotopic ratio by testing standard samples which have a variety of iodine isotopic ratios. Its detection limit is substantially below 10(-13) iodine isotopic ratio. Evaluating these performance tests, it was found that this iodine line would be a potentially powerful tool not only for monitoring around a nuclear facility but also for geochemical Studies such as dating and tracing in hydrogeologic and oceanographic research.