• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.245-251
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• 2020

Lead (Pb) has been shown to be a useful tracer of contamination sources and geochemical processes such as age dating and crustal evolution. These studies require a chromatographic technique for Pb separation from geological samples. This paper presents a comparison study on the effect of eluent concentration between 6M HCl and 8M HCl on the separation of Pb from Pb resin. The results showed that the separation of Pb using 6M HCl as the eluent was not effective compared to the separation using 8M HCl. To verify this method, we measured the Pb isotopic compositions of the Pb isotopic standard (NIST NBS981) and geological reference materials (BCR-2, GSP-2, and JG-1a) using a thermal ionization mass spectrometer (TIMS). The results correspond well with the reported values within the error range, implying that this method can be useful.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.8
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• pp.1349-1354
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• 2018

Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-AES) is widely used for the determination of trace elements in geological samples in Iran. In this paper, we have calculated the detection limits of neutron activation analysis (NAA) for some of the common elements in such samples utilizing the ORIGEN and MCNP codes and verified the simulations using the experimental results of three soil standard reference materials, namely, G02.SRM, G18.SRM, and G28.SRM. The results show that while the detection limit of ICP-AES method is usually in the mg/kg range, it is represented to the ${\mu}g/kg$ range for most of the elements of interest using the NAA method, and the simulations can be verified in a tolerance range of 20%.

• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.65-71
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• 2020

Glass reference materials have been essentially used for precise geochemistry analytical techniques. In order to make up for the drawback of synthetic glass reference materials, which have the high uncertainty caused by the difference in composition of natural rocks, we introduce a glass geostandard using natural glass. The NK-B1G sample, which comes from the Baekdusan obsidian, is a natural glassy rock that contains only few crystals such as microlites or inclusions. We examined the feasibility of the sample as a reference material for microanalysis like EPMA or LA-ICPMS.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.112-119
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• 1998

A Siemens SemiQuant (SSQ) 3000 program, a precalibrated 'standardless' analytical program handling up to 90 elements, was evaluated for the fast analysis of various types of reference materials using a wavelength dispersive X-ray spectrometer. Various types of standard reference materials such as metal discs, metal chips, and geological materials in powder form were analysed and it took 23 minutes of measuring time for 75 elements. Measurements of geological reference materials using different sampling methods were carried out and their data were interactively evaluated. The analysis of materials of a known matrix concentration such as stainless steels provided higher precision value compared to totally unknown samples. The analyses of materials prepared as pressed pellets or fused glass beads provided higher precision values compared to the measurement of loose powders with a foil on the sample surface and helium operation, though their sampling procedures were more complicate and took more time. Since very light elements such as boron, carbon, and oxygen have a strong influence on the matrix effects and also on the calculation of effective matrix corrections, the rhodium Compton check was applied to verify the reliability of the defined light element concentrations of light matrix materials and the defined major sample compounds. Failure of defining correct matrix resulted in an unoptimized matrix correction and therefore in the wrong calculation of the element concentration.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.3561-3565
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• 2011

A rapid and inexpensive method was developed for the determination of trace silver in geological samples by using sulfhydryl cotton coupled with ICP-MS. The interferences such as $^{90}Zr$, $^{92}Mo$ and $^{93}Nb$ on silver were investigated in detail. Sulfhydryl cotton was found to be an effective adsorbent for separation of interferences for Ag in the solutions. Excellent agreements with the certified values were obtained for all the certified reference materials. The memory effects of Ag by ICP-MS were examined by using different agents, including water, nitric acid, and HCl-thiourea to all standards/samples. The agents also acted as cleansing solutions. A combination of HCl with thiourea gave the minimum memory effect. For comparison of results, a proposed Chinese Geology Survey procedure DC-ARC-AES and a direct determination pretreatment method of ICP-MS (water bath- auqa regia digestion) were studied. Under optimal conditions, the detection limits of our method for $^{107}Ag$ and $^{109}Ag$ were 1.2 ng/g and 1.3 ng/g, which offered much better accuracy for some difficult analysis geological samples such as GBW07604, GBW07605.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.421-426
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• 2017

In this study, we selected three representative granite samples and conducted petrological observation to establish the Korean geostandards. Samples were taken from the two Jurassic (KJG-1, KJG-2) and one Cretaceous (KCG-1) granites in South Korea. The powder samples were prepared by the standard pulverization process, and glass beads were made for geochemical analysis using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) method, and finally, major element contents of the samples were acquired. The analytical data are shown with mean, standard deviation and relative standard deviation. The accuracy of the analysis was confirmed within an estimated error range of about 5% by comparing the recommended true values of the USGS and GSJ geostandards. Also, we checked the analytical precision by calculating a relative standard deviation of about 3% from the XRF analytical results for the three samples.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.221-227
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• 2016

Copper is an essential transition metal involving in various biogeochemical processes. With the recent advances in analytical techniques and mass spectrometry, such as MC-ICP-MS, it is possible to measure Cu isotopes, which allows us to understand various biogeochemical processes in detail. Nonetheless, few studies have been performed in South Korea. In this study, we compared two purification methods previously reported using an anion exchange resin ($AG^{(R)}$ MP-1M), developed the best method in our lab environment, and then verified it by measuring Cu isotopic compositions in two USGS geological reference materials (BHVO-2 and BIR-1a). Although all matrix cations causing mass bias were effectively removed through both two methods with the yield of better than 95%, the method using the mixture of HCl and $H_2O_2$ only displays Cu isotopic compositions, in excellent agreement with reported values within the error. The method developed in this study is expected to be commonly applied to earth and environmental sciences.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.237-245
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• 2022

Background: The current study reports measurements of activity concentrations of radon (²²⁰Rn) and thoron (²²⁰Rn) in dwellings, followed by inhalation dose assessment of the public, and then by the development of regulation and the national radon action plan (NRAP) in Cameroon. Materials and Methods: Radon, thoron, and thoron progeny measurements were carried out from 2014 to 2017 using radon-thoron discriminative detectors (commercially RADUET) in 450 dwellings and thoron progeny monitors in 350 dwellings. From 2019 to 2020, radon track detectors (commercially RADTRAK) were deployed in 1,400 dwellings. It was found that activity concentrations of radon range in 1,850 houses from 10 to 2,620 Bq/㎥ with a geometric mean of 76 Bq/㎥. Results and Discussion: Activity concentrations of thoron range from 20 to 700 Bq/㎥ with a geometric mean of 107 Bq/㎥. Thoron equilibrium factor ranges from 0.01 to 0.6, with an arithmetic mean of 0.09 that is higher than the default value of 0.02 given by UNSCEAR. On average, 49%, 9%, and 2% of all surveyed houses have radon concentrations above 100, 200, and 300 Bq/㎥, respectively. The average contribution of thoron to the inhalation dose due to radon and thoron exposure is about 40%. Thus, thoron cannot be neglected in dose assessment to avoid biased results in radio-epidemiological studies. Only radon was considered in the drafted regulation and in the NRAP adopted in October 2020. Reference levels of 300 Bq/㎥ and 1,000 Bq/㎥ were recommended for dwellings and workplaces. Conclusion: Priority actions for the coming years include the following: radon risk mapping, promotion of a protection policy against radon in buildings, integration of the radon prevention and mitigation into the training of construction specialists, mitigation of dwellings and workplaces with high radon levels, increased public awareness of the health risks associated with radon, and development of programs on the scientific and technical aspects.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.229-236
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• 2009

There are two types of spent fuels generated from nuclear power plants, CANDU type and PWR type. PWR spent fuels which include a lot of reusable material can be considered to be recycled. CANDU spent fuels are considered to directly disposed in deep geological formation, since they have little reusable material. In this study, based on the Korean Reference spent fuel disposal System(KRS) which is to dispose both PWR and CANDU spent fuels, the more effective CANDU spent fuel disposal systems have been developed. To do this, the disposal canister has been modified to hold the storage basket which can load 60 spent fuel bundles. From these modified disposal canisters, the disposal systems to meet the thermal requirement for which the temperature of the buffer materials should not be over $100^{\circ}C$ have been proposed. These new disposals have made it possible to introduce the concept of long tenn storage and retrievabililty and that of the two-layered disposal canister emplacement in one disposal hole. These disposal concepts have been compared and analyzed with the KRS CANDU spent fuel disposal system in terms of disposal effectiveness. New CANDU spent fuel disposal concepts obtained in this study seem to improve thermal effectiveness, U-density, disposal area, excavation volume, and closure material volume up to 30 - 40 %.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2021

Silicon (Si) is the second most abundant element in the crust and consists of three stable isotopes, 28Si (92.23%), 29Si (4.67%), and 30Si (3.10%). Si isotopes are widely studied worldwide as a proxy for the biogeochemical cycle of Si to reconstruct the paleoenvironment and paleoclimate. However, in Korea, there have been no studies on biogenic silica using Si isotopes. In this study, we carried out Si isotope measurements of giant diatoms, summarizing the previously reported alkali fusion methods and establishing the best Si separation method for biogenic silica. Samples were completely digested using alkali fusion at high temperatures, effectively separating Si using an AG® 50W-X8 cation exchange resin. To evaluate the precision and accuracy of our measurements, Si isotope standard material (NBS-28) and USGS reference materials (AGV-2, GSP-2, BHVO-2) were analyzed. The results are in excellent agreement with the reported values within the acceptable error. The Si isotope measurement method developed in this study is expected to help in understanding the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment by tracing the Si cycle.