D. Morris, R. Killick
Oct 1, 1959
Citations
0
Influential Citations
7
Citations
Journal
Talanta
Abstract
Abstract The increasing availability of nuclear reactor facilities makes analysis by neutronactivation an important method for more widespread use in trace element analysis. The technique is advantageous for the determination of submicrogram quantities of silver in platinum sponge, and its application in this connection is described. Activation of samples of platinum sponge has been carried out by neutron irradiation in the Harwell Pile BEPO for a period of one month, and silver has been assayed by measurements of the radionuclides 110mAg—110Ag. Radiochemical separation after the addition of carrier has been based mainly on precipitations of silver as chloride, sulphide, oxide, and iodate, and on electrolytic deposition. The silver has been finally precipitated as the iodate and counted with a NaI crystal λ-scintillation counter. Chemical yields have been determined gravimetrically. In order to avoid errors due to self-shielding, standards have been made by adding small known amounts of silver to analytical samples. The precision of analyses has been better than ±10 per cent, and the method described may be applied to the analysis of platinum containing as little as 0.02 ppm Ag. The ultimate sensitivity could be considerably enhanced by employing larger analytical samples and the Harwell Pile DIDO for irradiation.