Applied Radiation and Isotopes 60 (2004) 629–633 Potentialities of mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for actinides determination in urine C. Bouvier-Capely a, *, J. Ritt a , N. Baglan b , C. Cossonnet a a Centre de Fontenay-aux-Roses, IRSN, D! epartement de Protection de la sant ! e de l’Homme et de Dosim! etrie, B.P. 17, Fontenay-aux-Roses Cedex F-92262, France b Centre de Bruy " eres le Ch # atel, CEA, D ! epartement Analyses et Surveillance de l’Environnement, B.P. 12, Bruy " eres le Ch # atel F-91680, France Received 9 June 2003; received in revised form 3 December 2003; accepted 5 January 2004 Abstract The applicability of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for determining actinides in urine was investigated. Performances of ICP-MS including detection limit and analysis time were studied and compared with a spectrometry performances. In the field of individual monitoring of workers, the comparison chart obtained in this study can be used as a guide for medical laboratories to select the most adequate procedure to be carried out depending on the case in question (the radioisotope to be measured, the required sensitivity, and the desired response time). r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Actinides; Urine; Monitoring; ICP-MS; a spectrometry 1. Introduction Monitoring of workers occupationally exposed to a risk of contamination with radioactive material is generally based on workplace monitoring (measurements of airborne radioactivity in the workplace for example) and on individual monitoring. The individual monitoring can be achieved through in vivo measurements (anthro- poradiametry) and in vitro measurements (in urine and faeces) (ISO standard 12790-1, 2002). In case of contamination with a-emitting actinides, in vivo measure- ment offers a very poor sensitivity mainly due to the low energy and intensity of X-ray photons emitted and attenuation by the tissues (Toohey et al., 1991). Conse- quently, detection of actinides contamination is mainly based on in vitro measurements, i.e., excreta analyses. The analysis of actinides in urine is based on their measurement by a spectrometry. This technique requires lengthy chemical purification procedures, in particular the mineralisation of the urine sample to limit the self-absorption of a-particles and the separation of each actinide to avoid spectral interferences. In addi- tion, long sample counting times (several days) are necessary to reach detection limits which respect the legal requirements. The development in the last decades of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), a multi- element technique, has made this analytical tool a powerful technique with high sensitivity and low detection limits (Stuewer and Jakubowski, 1998). The main advantage of ICP-MS compared to a spectrometry is that the measurement time is considerably shortened (10min), and this technique is well suited for analysis of liquid samples such as urine. In addition, it was demonstrated that ICP-MS is a valuable technique for the determination of long-lived radionuclides (Caddia and Iversen 1998; Baglan et al., 1999, 2000, 2001). The aim of the present work is to assess to which extent the ICP-MS technique can be an alternative to a spectrometry for actinides measurement in urine, in terms of detection limit and analysis time. To achieve this goal, the detection limits obtained by ICP-MS for different actinides were calculated after urine dilution, ARTICLE IN PRESS *Corresponding author. Fax: +33-1-58-35-93-65. E-mail address: celine.bouvier@irsn.fr (C. Bouvier-Capely). 0969-8043/$-see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2004.01.007