• Title/Summary/Keyword: Nuclear nonproliferation

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Particle Analysis of Uranium Bearing Materials Using Ultra High-resolution Isotope Microscope System (초고분해능 동위원소현미경 시스템을 활용한 우라늄 핵종 입자 분석 기술)

  • Jeongmin Kim;Yuyoung Lee;Jung Youn Choi;Haneol Lee;Hyunju Kim
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.56 no.5
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    • pp.557-564
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    • 2023

  • Nuclear materials such as uranium are used as fuel for nuclear power generation, but there is a high possibility that they will be used for non-peaceful purposes, so international inspections and regulations are being conducted. Isotope analysis data of fine particulate obtained from nuclear facilities can provide important information on the origin and concentration method of nuclear material, so it is widely used in the field of nuclear safety and nuclear forensics. In this study we describe the analytical method that can directly identify nuclear particles and measure their isotopic ratios for fine samples using a large-geometry secondary ion mass spectrometer and introduce its preliminary results. Using the U-200 standard material, the location of fine particles was identified and the results consistent with the standard value were obtained through microbeam analysis.

  • https://doi.org/10.9719/EEG.2023.56.5.557 인용 PDF

Uranium Enrichment Comparison of UO2 Pellet with Alpha Spectrometry and TIMS

  • Song, Ji-Yeon;Seo, Hana;Kim, Sung-Hwan;Choi, Jung-Youn
    • Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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    • v.43 no.3
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    • pp.120-123
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    • 2018

  • Background: Analysis of enrichment of $UO_2$ is important to verify the information declared by the license-holders. The redundancy methods are required to guarantee the analysis result. Korea Institute of Nuclear Nonproliferation and Control (KINAC) used to analyze it with alpha spectrometry and consign to Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI) Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS). This article evaluated the similarity of the results with two methods and derive correlation equation. It could be compared to the results measured by TIMS running by KBSI. Materials and Methods: There are not many certified materials for the uranium enrichment value. Therefore, 34 uranium pellets, which have the wide range of uranium enrichment from 0.21 to 4.69 wt%, were used for the experiments by the alpha spectrometry and the TIMS. Results and Discussion: The study shows there are the tendency of analyzed enrichment by each equipment. It shows uranium enrichment with alpha spectrometry evaluated 17% higher than that with TIMS on average. The regression equations were also derived in case the similarity between the two results with two methods is lower than predicted. Two experiments were designed to compare the effect of number of samples. The $R^2$ was 0.9977 with 34 pellets. It shows the equation is appropriate to predict the enrichment values by TIMS with that of alpha spectrometry. The $R^2$ was 0.9858 with four pellets for ten times. The $R^2$ decreased while the number of samples increased. The discrepancy between the lowest and highest enrichment seems to be one of the reason for it. Conclusion: KINAC expects the first equation with 34 samples is useful to predict the result with TIMS, the redundancy method, based on the alpha spectrometry. The extra samples are necessary to collect if the enrichment value analyzed by TIMS is lower than the value predicted with the equation. Further study would be followed related to the impact of the peak counts for each uranium isotopes, sample amount and number of experiments when TIMS established in KINAC by the end of 2018.

  • https://doi.org/10.14407/jrpr.2018.43.3.120 인용 PDF KSCI