Quantification of uranium, plutonium, neodymium and gadolinium for the characterization of spent nuclear fuel using isotope dilution HPIC-SF-ICP-MS.

A method was developed for the determination of the nuclide-specific concentrations of U, Pu, Nd and Gd in two types of spent nuclear fuel (UOx and Gd-enriched). High-performance ion chromatography (HPIC) was used to separate the target elements from one another while sector-field inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (SF-ICP-MS) was used for their determination relying on isotope dilution for calibration. In order to obtain the best possible precision for these isotope ratios extracted from the transient HPIC-SF-ICP-MS signals, the SF-ICP-MS data acquisition parameters were optimized and the most suitable method for calculating the isotope ratios from the transient signals was identified.