Tracer studies on Sr resin and determination of 90Sr in environmental samples

In this work various tracer experiments were performed to investigate the elution behaviour of some radionuclides on Sr resin, matrix effects of calcium and potassium and the resin capacity for strontium. None of the studied radionuclides interfered with the separation of strontium since all were washed out with 3M HNO3 before the elution step with water, except barium. Barium and strontium were separated using 8M HNO3. The maximum resin capacity for strontium was 8.1 mg of Sr/g of Sr resin. Up to 2 g of calcium and 200 mg of potassium can be loaded on the Sr column (3 g Sr. spec) without decrease in strontium recovery. The separation procedure using Sr resin was tested on soil samples spiked with Sr-90 standard solutions and on reference materials. All results obtained by this method gave good agreement. Counting sources were prepared by weighing SrC2O4 on a planchet. The Sr-90 content was measured with a proportional gas flow beta counter after secular equilibrium between Sr-90 and Y-90 was reached. The chemical recovery was determined gravimetrically and was always higher than 80%.