The Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry conducted ‘The Collaborative Experiment on a Correction of the True Coincidence Summing Effect for 134Cs’ to investigate the causes of the underestimation of 134Cs radioactivity of the certified reference material in the International Inter-Comparison Exercise. This work examined the analysis results of the collaborative experiment, and confirmed that it is the cause of the underestimation that the true coincidence summing (TCS) correction is not sufficient because the TCS correction of using commercial gamma ray analysis programs do not consider the sample volume. This work developed and proposed the practical TCS correction method for general Ge detectors that considers the sample volume and examined the effectiveness of the method and confirmed that the underestimation can be reduced to less than 1%.
In order to reveal the quality and isotopic characteristics of lagoon waters and precipitations in Niigata City in recent years, oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope ratios (i.e., δ18O, δD) and tritium (T) concentrations as well as the concentrations of several major ions in water samples were measured. Lagoon water samples were regularly taken at the fixed sampling points from Sakata and Toyanogata, and precipitations were collected at Niigata University. Consequently, the following matters have been mainly clarified. (1) The water quality of Sakata is considered to be formed by the mixture of Uwakata (Mg-SO4 (NO3) type), the groundwater of southern Shitakata (Ca-SO4 (NO3 type), and precipitation (Na-Cl type). In case of the water quality of Toyanogata, a remarkable Na-Cl type was found at the outlet point in Toyanogata. (2) Each concentration of T is about 0.33 Bq/kg for precipitation, 0.29 Bq/kg for lagoon water (downstream point of Sakata), and 0.24 Bq/kg for groundwater on average. (3) In precipitation at Niigata City, d-excess (δD-8×δ18O; the parameter to estimate the origin of precipitation) was low in summer and high in winter.