Mashaba Machel, Kotze Deon, Tshivhase Victor M, Faanhof Arnaud
University of Botswana, Department of Physics, Private Bag, 0022, Gaborone, Botswana.
The South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA) SOC Limited, Pretoria, South Africa.
Appl Radiat Isot. 2023 Jan;191:110544. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2022.110544. Epub 2022 Nov 7.
Liquid scintillation counter (LSC), with its advanced spectrometry capabilities, the Quantulus 1220™, was used to determine gross α-β measurements in 25 environmental water samples. The determination of gross α-β emitters with the LSC method requires an accurate pulse shape analyzer (PSA) setting under various quenching conditions. External quenching parameter values were evaluated with americium and strontium standard solutions to look for the optimal PSA value. A PSA calibration curve was obtained and used to measure real samples. To validate a constructed PSA calibration curve, a test was performed using spiked samples with different standard solutions. The results of the same set of 25 water samples were verified by element specific separations followed by α-spectrometry. An acceptable correlation was obtained between the two techniques. In the case of LSC analysis, the results indicate a good PSA optimization. The method was found to be reliable, effective and very suitable for wide range measuring campaigns.
采用具有先进光谱分析能力的液体闪烁计数器（LSC）Quantulus 1220™ 测定25个环境水样中的总α-β放射性。采用LSC方法测定总α-β发射体需要在各种猝灭条件下准确设置脉冲形状分析器（PSA）。使用镅和锶标准溶液评估外部猝灭参数值，以寻找最佳PSA值。获得了PSA校准曲线并用于测量实际样品。为验证构建的PSA校准曲线，使用添加了不同标准溶液的加标样品进行了测试。通过元素特异性分离和α能谱分析对同一组25个水样的结果进行了验证。两种技术之间获得了可接受的相关性。在LSC分析中，结果表明PSA优化良好。该方法被认为可靠、有效，非常适合广泛的测量活动。
