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PRIMARY STANDARDIZATION OF THE MASSIC ACTIVITY OF A PROTACTINIUM-233 SOLUTION

Published

Author(s)

Ryan P. Fitzgerald, Leticia S. Pibida

Abstract

Protactinium-233 (233Pa) is used as a tracer for radiochemical analysis and is of particular interest as an isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) spike for 231Pa/235U radio- chronometry. To this end, we present massic activity determinations by two methods for a 233Pa solution, which was prepared at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and is being characterized at multiple labs as part of a 231Pa reference material production project. One activity determination method was 4πβ-γ anti-coincidence counting in a multi-dimensional extrapolation model, with Monte Carlo corrections. An independent massic activity determination was completed by gamma-ray spectrometry using 5 HPGe detectors using 5 gamma-ray lines. The anti-coincidence and gamma-ray spectrometry results agree and have combined standard uncertainties of about 0.33 % and 1.0 % respectively. In addition, the two methods were combined to derive gamma-ray emission probabilities from 233Pa decay.
Citation
Journal of Radioanalytical Nuclear Chemistry

Keywords

protactinium, radiochronometry, radioactivity standard

Citation

Fitzgerald, R. and Pibida, L. (2018), PRIMARY STANDARDIZATION OF THE MASSIC ACTIVITY OF A PROTACTINIUM-233 SOLUTION, Journal of Radioanalytical Nuclear Chemistry, [online], https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-6113-9 (Accessed March 28, 2024)
Created August 23, 2018, Updated November 10, 2018