engleski

Novel approach for strontium preconcentration from seawater

Determination of 90Sr in the environment is essential within the radiological monitoring programs. Due to strontium similarity to calcium, 90Sr may enter the human body and deposit in bone tissue. There are numerous methods developed to make its determination easier and faster1, 2. However, the determination of strontium in complex matrices, such as sea water, is still challenging. The methods are mostly time-consuming and tedious. In recent years, methods for 90Sr determination via its progeny 90Y are proposed. In the literature novel methods are described for the determination of both 89, 90Sr in case of emergency situation, using combination of Sr resin and DGA resin3, 4 or by using Empore Rad Disks5 . However, all approaches include preconcentration step by precipitation of strontium with phosphates, carbonates or oxalates6 . Within this study, a different approach is proposed by using a synthetic zeolite, Z4A. Small amount of this inexpensive material may be mixed with predetermined quantity of seawater at a sampling site and filtrated. The preliminary results have shown that within 5 minutes, 10 g of zeolite can pick up more than 90 % of strontium from 1 L of seawater. Therefore, the sample size may be reduced which may simplify further sample handling.

strontium ; synthetic zeolite ; seawater

Hrvatsko-srpski bilateralni projekt: Istraživanje sorpcije radionuklida na umjetne i prirodne materijale sa naglaskom na potencijalne primjene u analitici i /ili sigurnom uklanjanju radionuklida