Determination of environmental gaseous 129I trapped in charcoal cartridges by ICP-MS/MS

Coralie Carrier (1) , Azza Habibi (1) , Laurent Ferreux (2) , Luc Solier (3) , Didier Hebert (3) , Celine Augeray (1) , Maxime Morin (4) , Denis Maro (3) , Lucilla Benedetti (5)

1 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SAME/LERCA - Laboratoire d'expertise, de radiochimie et de chimie analytique
2 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SAME/LMN - Laboratoire de mesures nucléaires
3 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SRTE/LRC - Laboratoire de Radioécologie de Cherbourg-Octeville
4 IRSN/PSE-ENV/SAME - Service d'analyses et de métrologie de l'environnement
5 CEREGE - Centre européen de recherche et d'enseignement des géosciences de l'environnement

For environmental monitoring and radioecological studies, organic and inorganic 129I is often trapped in active charcoal. The analysis of this radionuclide can be difficult because of the low-level activities involved and its physico-chemical properties (e.g., volatility and multiple oxidation degrees). This study proposes a new method for 129I analysis by ICP-MS/MS, which consists in the extraction of iodine from charcoal by acid digestion followed by purification using a commercial specific resin. This new method allows reaching environmental levels of gaseous 129I near the fuel reprocessing plant of La Hague (France) with a limit of detection of only 2 mBq sample-1.

Mots clés: Active charcoal; 129I; ICP-MS/MS; radiochemical treatment

Domaines: Chimie analytique

Coralie Carrier, Azza Habibi, Laurent Ferreux, Luc Solier, Didier Hebert, et al.. Determination of environmental gaseous 129I trapped in charcoal cartridges by ICP-MS/MS. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 2023, 332 (6), pp.2003-2015. ⟨10.1007/s10967-023-08845-0⟩. ⟨irsn-04072741⟩