Reposted by Newlife - Radbar; original copyright belongs to the author. See "Sources" at the end for the original link.
International Standard Project Approved: ISO 18589-8 for Measuring Neptunium-237, Plutonium-239, Plutonium-240, and Plutonium-241 in Soil
Recently, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard "Radioactivity in the environment — Soil — Part 8: Determination of neptunium-237, plutonium-239, plutonium-240 and plutonium-241 by ICP-MS" (ISO 18589-8), led and submitted by the China Institute for Radiation Protection (CIRP) under China Nuclear Environmental Protection Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation, CNNC), was officially approved for project initiation following a vote by ISO/TC 85/SC 2 (Subcommittee on Radiological Protection).
The accurate determination of transuranic nuclides in soil serves as a vital technical foundation for environmental radioactivity monitoring and the environmental safety assessment of nuclear facilities. For a long time, routine monitoring of soil transuranic nuclides both domestically and internationally has primarily relied on radiochemical alpha spectrometry. However, this method involves long analysis cycles (ranging from weeks to months), complex pretreatment procedures, and relatively high method detection limits. The Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Application Team at CIRP has successfully overcome the technical bottleneck of simultaneous chemical pretreatment for plutonium and neptunium. They resolved the challenges of removing interferences from complex soil matrices and uranium. Based on triple quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS/MS) technology, they established a standard method for determining plutonium and neptunium in soil media. This achievement enables the accurate and reliable determination of low-level ²³⁷Np, ²³⁹Pu, ²⁴⁰Pu, and ²⁴¹Pu in the environment, significantly shortening the analysis cycle, lowering the method detection limit, and greatly improving the accuracy of environmental radioactivity monitoring and nuclear facility environmental safety assessments.
This standard fills the gap in international standards for the ICP-MS determination of transuranic nuclides in soil matrices, marking another significant advancement in China's international standardization efforts in the field of monitoring low-content, hard-to-measure radionuclides. Meanwhile, this series of standards is being simultaneously transformed into national standards, and this part has completed national standard project initiation as newly added content.
Sources
- google.com › web (2026-10-19) - Original link: 20 2026-10 International Standard Project Approved | Radioactivity in the environment — Soil... - https://www.google.com/goto?url=CAESZgHrOzAV14YWC0vSpV1WMCkJ4erMEfZ9d-Jj7_wBr0NCJRXoyrDZ-ROv5pGN85Ly0C50eFn6z5tc3L671xhVkr_D2-Ww9uoVAbuP_Fy3Eh-mu7jBNglflT-i8dPZRNJ08wDGhlYRuA