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Improving tritium exposure reconstructions using accelerator mass spectrometry

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Abstract

Direct measurement of tritium atoms by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) enables rapid low-activity tritium measurements from milligram-sized samples and permits greater ease of sample collection, faster throughput, and increased spatial and/or temporal resolution. Because existing methodologies for quantifying tritium have some significant limitations, the development of tritium AMS has allowed improvements in reconstructing tritium exposure concentrations from environmental measurements and provides an important additional tool in assessing the temporal and spatial distribution of chronic exposure. Tritium exposure reconstructions using AMS were previously demonstrated for a tree growing on known levels of tritiated water and for trees exposed to atmospheric releases of tritiated water vapor. In these analyses, tritium levels were measured from milligram-sized samples with sample preparation times of a few days. Hundreds of samples were analyzed within a few months of sample collection and resulted in the reconstruction of spatial and temporal exposure from tritium releases. Although the current quantification limit of tritium AMS is not adequate to determine natural environmental variations in tritium concentrations, it is expected to be sufficient for studies assessing possible health effects from chronic environmental tritium exposure.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Mini-grant Program, the Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program (00-ERI-01), and the Sabbatical Leave Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Additional funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Superfund Basic Research Program, P42 ES04705. This work was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-Eng-48. Discussions with S. Ring Peterson were extremely helpful in understanding the interaction of tritiated water vapor with vegetation. Additional thanks go to John Southon, Tom Guilderson, Tom Brown, Marina Chiarappa-Zucca, and Karen Dingley from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Gary Zeman, Ron Pauer, and Linnea Wahl from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Environment, Health, and Safety Division

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  1. A. H. Love

    Present address: Environmental Science Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, L-396, PO Box 808, Livermore, CA, 94551, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California at Berkeley, 631 Davis Hall, Berkeley, CA, 94720-1710, USA

    A. H. Love & J. R. Hunt

  2. Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, L-397, PO Box 808, Livermore, CA, 94551, USA

    J. S. Vogel & J. P. Knezovich

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  1. A. H. Love
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  2. J. R. Hunt
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  3. J. S. Vogel
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  4. J. P. Knezovich
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Correspondence to A. H. Love.

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Love, A.H., Hunt, J.R., Vogel, J.S. et al. Improving tritium exposure reconstructions using accelerator mass spectrometry. Anal Bioanal Chem 379, 198–203 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-003-2425-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-003-2425-9

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