Preparation of solid phase extraction cartridges for trace analysis of radionuclides

Abstract

Radionuclides are commonly determined with radiometry and mass spectrometry. For gamma-emitting nuclides, the activities can be measured without chemical separation due to the strong penetration ability. In contrast, the measurements of alpha and beta-emitting nuclides are generally associated with tedious and time-consuming chemical separation procedures to remove concomitants. Thus, an adsorbent that achieves rapid separation is desirable to reduce separation time and workload. Our research team has developed compact cartridge-type solid phase extraction materials which enable to facilitate separation procedures. A porous polymer sheet with high permeability was employed for the base materials. Polymer chains with functional groups were densely attached onto the pore surface of the porous polymer sheet by graft polymerization technique. This interfacial structure provides high-speed adsorption ensured by minimized diffusion paths of the target ions to the functional groups of the pore surface. In this review, basic separation performances of the developed cartridges were overviewed along with two application examples to radionuclide-containing samples.