A rapid sequential separation of actinides and radiostrontium coupled to ICP-MS and gas proportional counting A. Habibi 1 • C. Vivien 1 • B. Boulet 1 • C. Cossonnet 1 • R. Gurriaran 1 • M. Gleizes 2 • G. Cote 3 • D. Larivie `re 4 Received: 1 December 2015 Ó Akade ´miai Kiado ´, Budapest, Hungary 2016 Abstract A new protocol designed for the rapid deter- mination of U, Th, Pu, Np, Am and Sr in up to 500 mL of river water samples has been developed. The new method employs chromatographic separation, using TEVA, TRU and Sr resins, coupled to an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and to a gas proportional counting (GPC). Excellent figures of merit characterized by recov- eries and accuracies exceeding 80 and 90 %, respectively and detection limits below emergency thresholds are obtained. The new GPC methodology for the quantification of radiostrontium led to accurate results even with activity ratios (A 89Sr /A 90Sr ) as high as 95. Keywords Actinides  Radiostrontium  ICP-MS  Gas proportional counter  River water samples Introduction Rapid quantification of actinides and radiostrontium, in environmental, biological and foodstuff samples, is of major interest due to their high contribution to the internal dose of alpha and beta emitters. This interest increased after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident. Detection of ionizing radiation is currently performed either by ion-counting techniques such as mass spectrom- etry or radiometric counting techniques such as alpha spectrometry or gas proportional counting (GPC). The choice of the approach will depend, among other things, on the ionizing nature of the radionuclide, its half-life and its activity. While one can be preferred over the other one, the complementary use of radiometric measurement and mass spectrometry is sometimes mandatory. For example, in the case of Pu quantification, alpha spectrometry does not allow discrimination between 239 Pu and 240 Pu isotopes but provide great sensitivity for 238 Pu quantification. Inversely, the discrimination of 239 Pu and 240 Pu isotopes can be easily done by mass spectrometry but this technique does not allow the detection of 238 Pu due to its short half-life and the isobaric interference caused by 238 U[1]. In case of an emergency situation, the use of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to quantify actinides is more convenient compared to other mass spectrometry techniques such as thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) due to its rapid sample turnaround time and its sensitivity which is sufficient to meet most of the threshold in such situation. Moreover, the use of chromatographic separation methods with low acidic elution media, com- patible with ICP-MS measurement helps to minimize the turnaround time [2]. Rapid quantification of 89 Sr and 90 Sr by mass spec- trometry is, in contrast, more challenging. So far, only 90 Sr has been quantified by ICP-MS and reported detec- tion limits (DL) are in the order of several tens of bec- querels, in water samples [2]. DL of 90 Sr by ICP-MS & A. Habibi azzahabibi01@gmail.com 1 IRSN/PRP-ENV/STEME/LMRE, Rue du belve ´de `re, Ba ˆtiment 501, Bois des rames, 91400 Orsay, France 2 IRSN/PRP-ENV/STEME, 31 rue de l’e ´cluse, 78116 Le Ve ´sinet, France 3 Chimie ParisTech CNRS, Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris, PSL Research University, 75005 Paris, France 4 Laboratoire de radioe ´cologie, De ´partement de chimie, Universite ´ Laval, 1045 Avenue de la me ´decine, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada 123 J Radioanal Nucl Chem DOI 10.1007/s10967-016-4834-1