The effect of sample stability on the determination of radioactivity for various radionuclides by liquid scintillation counting

Xiao-gui Feng; Qian-ge He; Jian-chen Wang; Jing Chen

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2015.06.032

The effect of sample stability on the determination of radioactivity for various radionuclides by liquid scintillation counting

Appl Radiat Isot. 2015 Oct:104:147-54. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2015.06.032. Epub 2015 Jul 2.

Authors

Xiao-gui Feng¹, Qian-ge He², Jian-chen Wang², Jing Chen²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China. Electronic address: fengxiaogui@tsinghua.edu.cn.
² Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China.

PMID: 26163292
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2015.06.032

Abstract

For measuring a sample stored for a long period of time using liquid scintillation counting (LSC), it is necessary to study the long-term stability of the sample. The effect of sample stability on the determination of radioactivity for (241)Am, (90)Sr/(90)Y, (137)Cs, (147)Pm, (237)Np/(233)Pa, and (3)H by LSC has been investigated. The variation of quench level over time can be an indication of sample stability. If the variation in a sample is little, the effect of sample stability on the determination of the above radionuclides can be neglected. Otherwise, the sample stability will have impact not only on the counting efficiency (especially for low energy β emitters), but also on the results of α/β discrimination. For studying the stability of a sample, special attention should be paid to the radionuclides with chemical form apt to be adsorbed, because the quench level of a sample cannot be reflected by the quench index SQP(E) alone when significant physical quench exists. Shaking a sample stored for a long period of time and checking the LSC spectra can give the information on physical quench in the sample. In the range of this study, OptiPhase Hisafe 3 has much better quench resistance than Ultima Gold AB.

Keywords: Cocktail; Liquid scintillation counting; Quench; Stability; α/β discrimination.