Determination of trace amounts of uranium in plutonium oxide by wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry

This paper presents a wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) spectrometry based non-destructive methodology for the determination of trace level uranium in PuO2 powder. The methodology requires pelletization of PuO2 powder standards and samples using a hydraulic press, measuring WDXRF spectra of calibration standards and samples using U Lα X-ray as analytical line and analyzing the samples for trace amounts of uranium. The reproducibility of the analytical results using this methodolgy was found to be better than ± 5% (RSD, n = 5) for uranium in the range of 200–1000 µg g−1. The samples were also analyzed for U by ICP-OES and WDXRF values showed a close agreement with those obtained by ICP-OES.