L'ICP-MS: Un outil pour le suivi des contaminations internes à l'uranium

Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is considered as a very convenient technique for radionuclide measurement in the nuclear field owing to its high sensitivity and accuracy and to the possibility measuring a large range of masses. To study the different biokinetic behaviours of two different uranium oxides, insoluble UO2 and soluble UO4' in rats after successive inhalations, an analytical procedure to measure the quantity of uranium coming from each oxide was developed. The number of biological matrices studied was limited to three: two ways of the airborne uranium entry, i.e. the set lung/trachea and the gastrointestinal tract, and one way of excretion with urines. After repeated inhalations of UO2 followed by one acute inhalation of UO4' total uranium measurement in the different matrices was performed either with a kinetic phosphorescence analyzer (KPA), ICP-MS or with α- spectrometry. In addition, the amount of uranium coming from UO4' UO2 or natural uranium, respectively, was calculated by ICP-MS and α-spectrometry. All the results were compared and found to be similar. As a conclusion, the analytical procedure developed with ICP-MS was validated and ICP-MS was confirmed to be an efficient tool for the study of successive internal contaminations with uranium.