A new method for quantifying ⁶⁴Cu in nuclear debris samples

Affiliations

¹ Nuclear and Radiochemistry (C-NR), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop J-514, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
² Nuclear and Radiochemistry (C-NR), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop J-514, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA. Electronic address: aweberg@lanl.gov.
³ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd., Richland, WA, 99352, USA.
⁴ Accelerator Operations and Technology (AOT-DO), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop H-851, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
⁵ Nuclear and Radiochemistry (C-NR), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop J-514, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA. Electronic address: skhanson@lanl.gov.

PMID: 38718535
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2024.126140

A new method for quantifying ⁶⁴Cu in nuclear debris samples

Melinda S Wren et al. Talanta. 2024.

. 2024 Aug 1:275:126140.

doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2024.126140. Epub 2024 Apr 22.

Affiliations

¹ Nuclear and Radiochemistry (C-NR), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop J-514, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
² Nuclear and Radiochemistry (C-NR), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop J-514, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA. Electronic address: aweberg@lanl.gov.
³ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd., Richland, WA, 99352, USA.
⁴ Accelerator Operations and Technology (AOT-DO), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop H-851, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA.
⁵ Nuclear and Radiochemistry (C-NR), Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop J-514, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA. Electronic address: skhanson@lanl.gov.

PMID: 38718535
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2024.126140

Abstract

Quantifying ⁶⁴Cu in post-detonation nuclear debris samples can provide important diagnostic information regarding the structural materials used within a nuclear device. However, this task is challenging due to the weak gamma emissions associated with the decay of ⁶⁴Cu, its short half-life (12.701 h), and the presence of interfering fission product radioisotopes. Large quantities of debris sample are generally needed to accurately quantify ⁶⁴Cu, which can be problematic in sample-limited scenarios where other radiometric analyses are required. Herein, we present a new method for the separation of ⁶⁴Cu from solutions of mixed fission products and demonstrate the quantification of its activity through use of gas-flow proportional beta counting. The new method was validated through a series of rigorous tests and was shown to improve the detection limit of ⁶⁴Cu by over two orders of magnitude, from 2.5 × 10⁶ to 1.3 × 10⁴ atoms/sample for 100 min measurements.

Keywords: Beta counting; Copper-64; Nuclear forensics; Separation.

Published by Elsevier B.V.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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A new method for quantifying ⁶⁴Cu in nuclear debris samples

Affiliations

A new method for quantifying ⁶⁴Cu in nuclear debris samples

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

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Full Text Sources