Characteristic limits of 230Th in alpha spectrometry with 229Th as tracer, calculated by simulating interfering tails and overlapping peaks

C Gascó; J A Suárez-Navarro; E Escareño-Juárez; E Fernández; L García; F Puertas; M M Alonso; C Pérez

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109097

Characteristic limits of ²³⁰Th in alpha spectrometry with ²²⁹Th as tracer, calculated by simulating interfering tails and overlapping peaks

Appl Radiat Isot. 2020 Jun:160:109097. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109097. Epub 2020 Feb 27.

Authors

C Gascó¹, J A Suárez-Navarro², E Escareño-Juárez³, E Fernández², L García², F Puertas⁴, M M Alonso⁴, C Pérez⁵

Affiliations

¹ Unidad de Radiactividad Ambiental y Vigilancia Radiológica, CIEMAT, Avenida de la Complutense 40, Madrid, 28040, Spain. Electronic address: catalina.gasco@ciemat.es.
² Unidad de Radiactividad Ambiental y Vigilancia Radiológica, CIEMAT, Avenida de la Complutense 40, Madrid, 28040, Spain.
³ Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, Unidad Académica de Estudios Nucleares, Mexico.
⁴ Eduardo Torroja Institute for Construction Sciences (IETcc-CSIC), Spain.
⁵ TECNASA, Calle Primera (Chamartín), 27 BAJO, Madrid, Spain.

PMID: 32351213
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109097

Abstract

This study explores the effect of ²²⁹Th tracer tail interference on the determination of the sensitivity of ²³⁰Th alpha spectrometry of samples with environmental levels of radioactivity. Tracer peak tail interference was calculated with Suma-Alpha, whilst Visual Basic for Applications (VBA in Excel©) software was used to study the variation in sensitivity in terms of the amount of tracer added. Unnecessary increases in the amount of tracer or extended sample measuring times were observed to have adverse effects on method sensitivity (Detection Limit- L_d).