Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme

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MS: Fachverband Massenspektrometrie

MS 8: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry 3

MS 8.1: Talk

Thursday, March 8, 2018, 14:30–14:45, R 1.020

Recent applications and developments of actinide detection at VERA — •Karin Hain¹, Peter Steier¹, Robin Golser¹, Jixin Qiao², Gabrielle Wallner³, Stephan Winkler⁴, and Philipp Zima³ — ¹Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Austria — ²Technical University of Denmark, Denmark — ³Faculty of Chemistry, University of Vienna, Austria — ⁴iThemba LABS, Johannesburg, South Africa

Long-lived actinides like ^239,240Pu, ²⁴¹Am and in particular ²³⁶U are routinely analyzed in environmental samples at the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA). The aim is to understand the migration of these elements by studying their distribution in the environment and also biosphere, and their emission sources. In this context, for example, depth profiles of these nuclides and ²³⁷Np in the Pacific Ocean and the ²³⁶U concentration in human lungs ashes were studied. Most recently our portfolio was extended by anthropogenic ²³³U which can be found in global fallout at around 1 % of ²³⁶U on the Northern Hemisphere where it seems to offer the opportunity to discriminate between U releases from thermonuclear weapons and civil nuclear industry. First measurements on corals and snow from Antarctica, however, indicate a considerably lower ²³³U/²³⁶U ratio on the Southern Hemisphere. Current developments mainly focus on the increase of the negative ion yield of actinides from the sputter ion source by using fluoride based targets and to simplify sample preparation by detecting ²³⁶U directly from the soil matrix. The results of the mentioned applications and developments will be discussed in this talk.