Determination of 107Pd in Pd Recovered by Laser-Induced Photoreduction with Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

Safety evaluation of a radioactive waste repository requires credible activity estimates confirmed by actual measurements. A long-lived radionuclide, 107 Pd, which can be found in radioactive wastes, is one of the difficult-to-measure nuclides and results in a deficit in experimentally determined contents. In this study, a precipitation-based separation method has been developed for the determination of 107 Pd with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The photoreduction induced by pulsed laser irradiation at 355 nm provides short-time and one-step recovery of Pd. The proposed method was verified by applying it to a spent nuclear fuel sample. To recover Pd efficiently, a natural Pd standard was employed as the Pd carrier. Taking advantage of the absence of 102 Pd in spent nuclear fuel, 102 Pd in the Pd carrier was utilized as the internal standard. The chemical yield of Pd was about 90% with virtually no impurities, allowing accurate quantification of 107 Pd. The amount of 107 Pd in the Pd precipitate was 17.3 ± 0.7 ng, equivalent to 239 ± 9 ng per mg of 238 U in the sample.