Abstract:
This paper mainly focuses on analysis of
234Th in seawater by using MnO
2 co-precipitation and β counter. In lab study, several conditional experiments, such as the selection of filter membrane, pH, whether acidification before co-precipitation, carbonate concentration and the usage amount of MnO
2, were performed. If the mixed cellulose ester membrane was used for sample counting on gas flow β counter, it makes the blank count rate to be around (0.50±0.04) min
-1. Acidification can promote the precipitation of uranium because it can destory the complexation of uranium with CO
32-. At pH=10.0, the separation effect of
234Th from
238U solution is good. Moreover, carbonate can coordinate uranium and make uranium kept in solution. Besides, the efficiency is increased when more MnO
2is added. The best reagent amount is 1.2mg KMnO
4 and 3.0mg MnCl
2·4H
2O per liter of sample in this study. We have applied this method combined with the actual situation to analyze
234Th in seawater samples from East China Sea. The recovery of
234Th is around (36.0±5.2)%(
n=3).