Determination of trace impurities of chlorine in zirconium-alloy matrices using neutron activation technique

Trace impurities of chlorine in the zircaloy-2 and Zr-2.5% Nb alloy matrix have been determined using neutron activation analysis (NAA) and off-line gamma-ray spectrometric technique. The results have been compared with the values obtained from pyrohydrolysis-IC and spark source mass spectrometric method. The limit of internal precision error from the neutron activation technique is 6.7% for zircolloy-2 and 9% for Zr-2.5% Nb alloy, which are lower than that of pyrohydrolysis-IC and spark source mass spectrometric measurements respectively. For both alloys the results from present work based on NAA technique are slightly higher than the results based on the other two methods but are comparable within the uncertainty.