Abstract:
After the Fukushima nuclear accident, the rapid detection of critical radionuclides in the marine environment has been required.
131I, an artificial radionuclide released from nuclear reaction with high activity but very short half-life, is one of the critical nuclides for rapid assessment of nuclear contamination. In the present study, the compound of CuFC/AgFC were embedded on the polypropylene fiber column to study the enrichment of
131I. The CuFC/AgFC enrichment column can adsorb iodine isotopes efficiently. These results show that within the flow rate of 6.25 L/min, the sorption efficiency of
131I by one cycle time of seawater can reach 50% when the initial concentration of I (as I
- form) is 24 μmol/L. However, the sorption efficiency by eight cycles times of seawater can reach 100% even when the initial concentration of I (as I
- form) is 4 μmol/L. It usually takes 40 minutes to prepare the targets after the enrichment experient, and then 12-24 hours for the
131I analysis by HPGe-gamma spectrometry. Therefore, the method of
131I in seawater in the present work can be completed in 30 h, which significantly improves the analysis for
131I. Both the detection limit and analysis time of this method in the present work are much lower than the current GB/T 13272-1991 standard. Moreover, this method can detect
137Cs (
134Cs) in seawater simultaneously, which is expected to be one of the alternative methods to rapidly detect
131I and
137Cs (
134Cs) in freshwater/seawater nearshores for routine monitoring and also emergency cases.