Determination of 226Ra at low levels in environmental, urine, and human bone samples and 223Ra in bone biopsy using alpha-spectrometry and metrological traceability to 229Th/225Ra or 226Ra.

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State: Public
Version: Final published version
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Serval ID
serval:BIB_B126941C5045
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Determination of 226Ra at low levels in environmental, urine, and human bone samples and 223Ra in bone biopsy using alpha-spectrometry and metrological traceability to 229Th/225Ra or 226Ra.
Journal
Analytica chimica acta
Author(s)
Straub M., Pittet P.A., Amzalag G., Bochud F., Baechler S., Froidevaux P.
ISSN
1873-4324 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0003-2670
Publication state
Published
Issued date
15/11/2018
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
1031
Pages
178-184
Language
english
Notes
Publication types: Journal Article
Publication Status: ppublish
Abstract
<sup>226</sup> Ra is a natural radioelement emitting α and γ radiations. It can be highly concentrated in TENORM materials from the petroleum or fertilizer industries. In Switzerland, <sup>226</sup> Ra is currently a radioactive inheritance problem from the watch industry. Furthermore, <sup>223</sup> Ra is a radium isotope used in nuclear medicine to treat bone metastasis. There exist several methods to measure radium using alpha or gamma spectrometry or using <sup>222</sup> Rn emanation technique. The limitations of these methods are due to the required detection limits and the nature of the samples. When using alpha spectrometry to reach very low detection limits, critical technical hitches often arise because of the difficulties in separating radium from barium, in removing organics eluted from the separating chromatography column, and in plating radium. Moreover, overall chemical recovery of radium is often not reproducible, depending on the studies. Here we propose a method that separates radium from other alkaline-earth cations using cation exchange chromatography and selective complex formation by EDTA and DCTA. Radium is completely free of the <sup>229</sup> Th tracer and its daughter products, particularly <sup>225</sup> Ac. Organics from the column are removed in a further purification step so that radium can be plated with acceptable yields in a HCl/HNO <sub>3</sub> /ethanol solution. We successfully applied the method to soil, water, urine and human bone samples and further extended it to the determination of <sup>223</sup> Ra in a bone biopsy, using <sup>226</sup> Ra as an internal tracer.
Keywords
Alpha Particles, Bone and Bones/chemistry, Bone and Bones/metabolism, Bone and Bones/pathology, Gamma Rays, Humans, Radium/analysis, Radium/blood, Radium/urine, Scintillation Counting, Soil/chemistry, Thorium/analysis, Thorium/blood, Thorium/urine, Water Pollutants, Radioactive/analysis, Alpha spectrometry, Bone, Electrodeposition, Ra-223, Ra-226, Urine
Pubmed
Web of science
Create date
31/08/2018 11:10
Last modification date
20/09/2023 5:55
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