A study on determination of potentially hazardous plutonium isotopes in environmental samples.

Due to the lack of stable plutonium isotopes, and the high mobility as well as long half-life, plutonium is considered one of the most important radioelement in safety assessment of environmental radioactivity and nuclear waste management. A number of analytical methods have been developed over the past decades for determination of plutonium in environmental samples. The article discusses different analytical techniques and presents the results of plutonium isotopes determination by alpha spectrometry and accelerator mass spectrometry in environmental samples.

The inflow of 238Pu and (239+240)Pu from the Odra and Pomeranian rivers catchments area to the Baltic Sea.

The aim of the work was to estimate plutonium inflow from the Odra River catchments area to the Baltic Sea. The highest activities of (238)Pu and (239+240)Pu were observed in a winter and a spring season. The highest annual surface inflow of (239+240)Pu from the Odra River watershed was observed for a mountain tributary the Bóbr (1230 Bq km(-2) year(-1)).

Plutonium fractionation in southern Baltic Sea sediments.

In this study, different chemical plutonium fractions (dissolved in water, connected to carbonates, connected to oxides, complexed with organic matter, mineral acids soluble and the rest) in sediments from the Vistula River estuary, the Gdańsk Basin and the Bornholm Deep were determined. The distribution of (239+240)Pu in analysed sediments samples was not uniform but dependent on its chemical form, depth and the sediment geomorphology. The highest amount of plutonium exists in middle parts of sediments and comes from the global atmospheric fallout from nuclear tests in 1958-1961.