Plutonium assaying
AssigneeBritish Nuclear Fuels plc
InventorsDavid J. Thornley, Christopher H. Orr, Christine A. Burnett
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Abstract
A method determining the plutonium content of a material containing fluorine involves obtaining the mass ratio of plutonium in a compound comprising plutonium and fluorine, particularly plutonium tetrafluoride, to the total plutonium content. The method utilises a high resolution gamma ray spectrometry technique to obtain a count rate in a pair of gamma ray photopeaks. One of the photopeaks has an energy level of 414 keV, resulting from the decay of plutonium-239, and the other photopeak has an energy level of 583 keV, resulting from the decay of an excited sodium-22 nucleus following an (alpha,n) interaction with fluorine.
Claims8
A method of determining the plutonium content of a material which also contains fluorine, wherein said method comprises the steps of:
- (a) obtaining by high resolution gamma ray spectrometry a count rate in a pair of gamma ray photopeaks;
- and thereafter,
- (b) determining the mass ratio of plutonium in a compound comprising plutonium and fluorine to the total plutonium content of the material utilizing said count rate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.