Determination of radium-226 in drinking water by alpha spectroscopy

A radiochemical procedure for determination of radium-226 (Ra-226) in drinking water was developed. The method involves concentrating radium by coprecipitation with barium sulfate; separating radium from barium and other alkaline earth metals by ion exchange; and electrodepositing radium onto stainless steel disc for radioactivity counting. The procedure requires the using a chemical yield tracer, Ra-223. Two methods for the preparation of Ra-223 from Ac-227 were studied. One method, which uses solvent extraction of radium with TTA/benzene, showed better results and took much less time in comparison to the other method which uses anion exchange, followed by co-precipitation of radium as Ba(Ra)SO{dollar}\sb4{dollar} and dissolution with DTPA (7). The results from the new analytical procedure for measuring Ra-226 in drinking water were compared with the traditional radon de-emanation method. The new procedure unfortunately showed no significant benefit over the de-emanation method.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemistry

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

1991

Author dc:creator

• Choi, Jae-Gu

Contributors dc:contributor

• Vernon F. Hodge

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/142

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-1141