EC interlaboratory comparison on terrestrial radionuclides in soil

In 2010, 73 laboratories participated in the interlaboratory comparison organized by the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements on the activity concentrations of 15 radionuclides in soil. Results for the terrestrial radionuclides 40K, 226Ra, 230Th, 232Th, 234U, 235U, and 238U are discussed in this paper. The laboratories' performance varied depending on the radionuclide determined and method used. Gamma-ray spectrometry with respect to 40K is well controlled. However, gamma-ray spectrometry results for other radionuclides, like 226Ra and uranium isotopes, rendered very bad results. This is most probably due to the lack of appropriate corrections in these measurements. In general, better results were obtained by alpha-particle spectrometry, except for the 232Th where the results of gamma-ray spectrometry are significantly better. The most successful method is ICP-MS although used only by two participants for the determination of uranium isotopes.

MERESOVA Jana;  WAETJEN Uwe;  JOBBAGY Viktor; 

2013-09-18

Pannonian University Press

JRC74415

978-615-5044-67-0,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC74415,