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Article Dans Une Revue Analytical Chemistry Année : 2020

Pushing limits of ICP-MS/MS for the determination of ultra-low 236U/238U isotope ratios

Résumé

Determination of uranium isotope ratios is of great expedience for assessing its origin in environmental samples. In particular, the isotope ratio 236U/238U provides a powerful tool to discriminate between the different sources of uranium (uranium ore, typical ambient uranium, or anthropogenic uranium). However, in the environment, this ratio is typically below 10-8. This low abundance of 236U and the presence in large excess of major isotopes (mainly 238U and 235U) complicates the accurate detection of 236U signal by mass spectrometry and highly sensitive analytical instruments providing high abundance sensitvity are required. This work pushes the limits of triple quadrupole-based ICP-MS technology for accurate detection of 236U/238U isotope ratios down to 10-10, which is so far mainly achievable by AMS. Coupled with an efficient desolvating module, N2O was used as reaction gas in the collision reaction cell of the ICP-MS/MS. This configuration allows a significant decrease of the uranium polyatomic interferences (235UH+ ions) and an accurate determination of low 236U/238U. The proposed methodology was successfully validated through measurements of certified reference material from 10-7 to 10-9 and then through comparisons with AMS measurement results for ratios down to 10-10. This is the first time that 236U/238U isotope ratios as low as 10-10 were determined by ICP-MS/MS. Below this ratio, interferences became significant and the actual configuration reaches its limit. The possibility of measuring low 236U/238U isotope ratios open the way to a variety of geochemical studies for the determination of uranium sources in the environment.

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Dates et versions

hal-02869302 , version 1 (15-12-2020)

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Hugo Jaegler, Alkiviadis Gourgiotis, Peter Steier, Robin Golser, Olivier Diez, et al.. Pushing limits of ICP-MS/MS for the determination of ultra-low 236U/238U isotope ratios. Analytical Chemistry, 2020, pp.7869-7876. ⟨10.1021/acs.analchem.0c01121⟩. ⟨hal-02869302⟩

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