Purification of plutonium by resin separation prior to mass spectrometry measurement: Method validation by interlaboratory comparison

The purification of plutonium from interfering elements, such as uranium or americium, is required prior to isotopic composition determination and can be achieved through the implementation of separation procedures based on solid phase extraction. Two protocols were optimized by various international laboratories during a working group, using anionic or UTEVA resins. To demonstrate the efficiency of the plutonium purification process, an interlaboratory comparison was conducted based on a method validation approach. The comparison was attended by a total of seven international laboratories. The statistical analysis of the results, employing analysis of variance, demonstrated that the uranium removal yield is greater than 99.93%, regardless which resin was used. The potential advantages of implementing a secondary purification procedure when employing anionic resins were validated. The uranium removal yield is superior for the UTEVA resin (exceeding 99.95%) in comparison to the anionic resin. The statistical analysis demonstrated that the removal of U from the Pu fraction was total (i.e. yield not different from 100%), with a measurement reproducibility expanded uncertainty for this yield less than 0.0001%.

QUEMET Alexandre;  CROZET M.;  SANCHEZ HERNANDEZ Ana Maria;  REPINC Urška;  AREGBE Yetunde;  MATSUMOTO Kazutaka;  MIALLE Sebastien;  CRUCHET Celine;  TOERVENY Andras;  ESBELIN Eric;  MAILLARD Christophe; 

2026-03-26

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC142173

1873-3565 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0584854726000674?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC142173,   

10.1016/j.sab.2026.107516 (online),