0000000000292068
AUTHOR
Maria Betti
Determination of the content in uranium oxide particles by fission track analysis
Abstract One of the most important tasks of nuclear safeguards is to control the activities in nuclear facilities worldwide. These activities include the enrichment of 235 U . To identify enrichments above the maximum authorised level in commercial enrichment plants (usually 5% 235 U ) swipe tests are performed and the 235 U enrichment is determined in the sampled uranium oxide particles. A method is described that allows to measure the 235 U content in small particles (around 1 μm in diameter) by the use of fission tracks. It is based on the fact that in uranium fuel, only 235 U atoms are fissile with thermal neutrons and contribute to the amount of fission tracks counted for individual pa…
Production of monodisperse uranium oxide particles and their characterization by scanning electron microscopy and secondary ion mass spectrometry
Abstract Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) can be confidently used to measure uranium isotopic ratios in single particles. Dense particles of known isotopic composition and size allow the precision and the accuracy of the applied procedure to be estimated. These particles can be obtained by dissolving standard reference uranium materials, nebulizing the solution in droplets of proper diameter and collecting the particles after the desolvation and calcination of the droplets. A new instrumental set up, based on a commercial vibrating orifice aerosol generator to generate monodisperse droplets of the solutions from four uranium oxide reference materials, is described. The droplets were d…