MEASUREMENT OF TRITIUM ACTIVITY IN SOILS

Tritium a radionuclide can accumulate in soils as a result of releases by the nuclear power industry. Currently there are no suitable method s to measure tritium levels in soils. A relatively simple extraction m ethod is reported. The procedure involves an extraction of soil-borne tritium with NaOH and potassium permanganate solutions followed by sta ndard scintillation counting procedures. The method detected tritium l evels in soils that averaged 0.0099 Bq g-1 soil. Soil samples spiked w ith tritium were very reproducible with a coefficient of variability o f 5%.