Remeasurement of 234U Half-Life

The half-life of 234U has been re-determined using a novel approach. In this method, a uranium material was chemically purified from its thorium decay product at a well-known time. The ingrowth of the 230Th daughter product in the material was followed by measuring the accumulated 230Th daughter product relative to its parent 234U nuclide using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Then the 234U decay constant and the respective half-life could be calculated using the radioactive decay equations based on the n(230Th)/n(234U) amount ratio. The obtained 234U half-life is 244900 ± 670 years (k = 1), which is in good agreement with previously reported results in the literature with comparable uncertainty. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it does not require the assumption of secular equilibrium between 234U and 238U. Moreover, the calculation is independent from the 238U half-life value and its uncertainty. The suggested methodology can also be applied for the re-measurement of the half-lives of several other long-lived radionuclides.

VARGA Zsolt;  NICHOLL Adrian;  WALLENIUS Maria;  MAYER Klaus; 

2016-12-01

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

JRC97923

0003-2700,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC97923,   

10.1021/acs.analchem.5b04370,