DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE EDXRF TO MONITOR ACTINIDE CONTAMINATED WASTE STREAMS

A commercially available on-line energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) system has been modified for glove box operations and installe d on the Advanced Testing Line for Actinide Separations (ATLAS) at Los Alamos. The goal is to quantitatively monitor actinides and metal imp urities in an anion-exchange effluent to obtain near-real-time chemica l information. Because of recent compliance issues, metals listed in t he Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and other low level r adioactive components are also being analyzed. Initial experiments on how pre concentration techniques can be applied to on-line EDXRF measu rements for improved detection limits have also been conducted An over view of these developments is presented in this paper.