Pu in urine

["Carbaugh, Eugene H" <gene.carbaugh@pnl.gov>]

Here at the Hanford Site we run one of the largest Pu monitoring programs in the
country (some 1700 urinalyses in 1997).  Our urinalysis program is designed on
an MDA of 0.02 dpm for a 24-hour sample, but our lab had done somewhat better
than that.  It's fair to say that we are not seeing Pu in workers at a nominal
sensitivity of 0.01 dpm per day.  We also a high sensitivity protocol that
targets an MDA in the range of 0.005 dpm (using a 10,000 minute alpha spec
count) but that one has been a little challenging for our lab.

Brookhaven National Lab has used a fission track procedure for Pu239 in urine
samples with a very high sensitivity on Marshallese Islanders.  Last I heard,
the U.S. Transuranium Registry was working on a similar protocol.

Finally, Los Alamos National Lab has a very sensitive Iprocedure for Pu239
involving TIMS (thermo ionization mass spectrometry) which has an MDA in the
range of (I believe) 0.002 dpm.

I'd be happy to discuss this further with you if you want to contact me directly
by phone or e-mail.

Gene Carbaugh
Internal Dosimetry
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
gene.carbaugh@pnl.gov
phone:  (509) 376-6632