Effective determination of the long-lived nuclide 41Ca in nuclear reactor bioshield concretes: comparison of liquid scintillation counting and accelerator mass spectrometry.

The routine application of liquid scintillation counting to (41)Ca determination has been hindered by the absence of traceable calibration standards of known (41)Ca activity concentrations. The introduction of the new IRMM (41)Ca mass-spectrometric standards with sufficiently high (41)Ca activities for radiometric detection has partly overcome this although accurate measurement of stable Ca concentrations coupled with precise half-life data are still required to correct the certified (41)Ca:(40)Ca ratios to (41)Ca activity concentrations. In this study, (41)Ca efficiency versus quench curves have been produced using the IRMM standard, and their accuracy validated by comparison with theoretical calculations of (41)Ca efficiencies. Further verification of the technique was achieved through the analysis of (41)Ca in a reactor bioshield core that had been previously investigated for other radionuclide variations. Calcium-41 activity concentrations of up to 25 Bq/g were detected. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurements of the same suite of samples showed a very good agreement, providing validation of the procedure. Calcium-41 activity concentrations declined exponentially with distance from the core of the nuclear reactor and correlated well with the predicted neutron flux.