New achievements in industrial applications of nuclear track microfilters

Abstract

Nuclear Track Microfilters (NTMF) have been applied to analyse the prime loop water of a nuclear power reactor for its content of plutonium and solid contaminants. After filtrating a few liters of prime loop water and subsequent drying of the filters, the α-activity of the loaded filters has been measured. The Pu content in the original water and in the filtrate were determined also, using conventional Pu chemistry. First results show that the filters are capable of retaining a major fraction of the Pu present in the sample. Thus, α-spectrometry of the loaded filters could be a method to routinely determine the Pu content of the prime loop water in spite of certain difficulties in the sampling which will be discussed in the paper.

Solid contaminants have their origin in the corrosion of those materials which are in contact with the coolant. Using the scanning electron microscope (SEM), these particles can be found as filter load. Their elemental composition can be determined with the help of an energy-dispersive X-ray analysis system (EDXA) attached to the SEM.