A combined method for the determination of the isotopic vector of plutonium isotopes in environmental samples

A combination of alpha-spectrometry, liquid scintillation counting (LSC) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) was used for the determination of plutonium isotopes. Pu-238 and Pu239+240 were measured by alpha-spectrometry after separation of Pu by anion-exchange using Pu-236 tracer as recovery monitor. After alpha-measurement, one part of the sample was dissolved for determining Pu-241 by LSC. Another part was used for the measurement of the Pu-240/Pu-239 atom ratio by AMS at VERA. Thus, it was possible to obtain complete information on the Pu isotopic composition of the samples. This method was applied to environmental reference samples and samples contaminated from nuclear reprocessing.