Rapid radionuclide specific screening procedures in drinking water: alternative options to replace inaccurate gross activity measurements

It was concluded from two European wide proficiency tests that the gross alpha/beta methods used for drinking water analysis have fundamental pitfalls regardless of the specific gross-counting approach used. The results suffer from serious trueness and repeatability issues. To replace inaccurate gross activity measurements an alternative rapid radionuclide specific screening procedure for water analysis is proposed. This procedure considers alpha-particle spectrometry, gamma-ray spectrometry and liquid scintillation counting techniques. The proposed procedure is more robust and can achieve lower uncertainties than that of the gross activity methods. Furthermore, it still enables the generation of qualitative and quantitative analytical data and measurement results with turnaround times comparable to the gross methods.

JOBBAGY Viktor; 

2022-10-05

SPRINGER

JRC129145

0236-5731 (online),   

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10967-022-08409-8,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC129145,   

10.1007/s10967-022-08409-8 (online),