A wet-oxidation procedure of radioactive waste resin and waste concentrated liquid for 3 H and 14 C analysis

3 H and 14 C are two of the principal isotopes that should be considered in the characterization of radioactive waste from the nuclear power plant. In this paper, an analytical method of 3 H and 14 C in radioactive waste resin and waste concentrated liquid with a wet-oxidation process was presented, which allowed us to obtain both samples of 3 H and 14 C simultaneously. The chemical yields were optimized based on an orthogonal experiment with fresh resin. The analytical precision and the minimum detectable concentration (MDC) were provided. The chemical yield of 14 C during the process for resin was about 96.8%. There was no significant difference between the analytical results of 14 C with the wet-oxidation method and those with the oxygen-bomb combustion method. The MDCs of activity of 3 H and 14 C were 41 Bq/g ww and 1.3 Bq/g ww for waste resin, and 1.3 Bq/g ww and 0.02 Bq/g ww for waste concentrated liquid. The method was applied to determine the radioactivity concentrations in the waste from a typical nuclear power plant. It was shown that the averaged concentrations of 3 H and 14 C in the radioactive waste resin were 6134 Bq/g ww and 2724 Bq/g ww , and the averages in waste concentrated liquid were 104.7 Bq/g ww and 27.3 Bq/g ww , respectively.