Separation of plutonium in urine without sample ashing for determination by .alpha.-spectrometry

Present methods for the analysis of plutonium in urine require ashing the organic constituents of the sample, a time-consuming procedure and a major source of error. A method was developed to quantitatively separate 25 fCi of plutonium directly from 800 cm/sup 3/ of urine by coprecipitation with calcium oxalate. Without ashing, the oxalate precipitate is directly dissolved in 7.2 M HNO/sub 3/ and the plutonium is isolated by anion exchange, electrodeposited, and then measured by ..cap alpha..-spectrometry. The results are in excellent agreement with results obtained by existing procedures, and for 194 samples the average recovery of the plutonium tracer was 91% with a standard deviation of +- 10. The average recovery of the plutonium isotope in quality control samples was 101% when corrected for the /sup 242/Pu tracer recovery.