Analysis of dilute natural uranium solutions by gamma-ray excited x-ray fluorescence

Abstract

Application of a gamma-ray excited X-ray fluorimeter to batch analysis of uranium solutions containing less than 10 g ℓ-1, and particularly of dilute impure solutions, is described. An outline is given of design details of the gamma-ray excited X-ray source and of the comparison of backscattered incident X-rays and fluorescent X-rays as a means of compensating for variations in the matrix solution. For pure solutions the lower limit of detection was 0.03 g ℓ-1, compared with 0.05 g ℓ-l for typical impure solutions. In the range 0.1 to 10 g ℓ-1, an accuracy of ± 5 per cent was obtained, while in the range 0.05 to 0.1 g ℓ-1, the accuracy was ± 30 per cent.