Isolation of radioactive strontium from natural samples: A semi-automatic procedure

A procedure for semi-automatic isolation and determination of radioactive s trontium from natural samples was developed. The method was tested by the d etermination of Sr-90 in soil samples and the results obtained were compare d to those obtained by the standard procedure. The procedure consists of le aching of strontium land other cations as well) from soil samples with a wa ter suspension of the cation exchanger Amberlite IR-20, the separation of s trontium from other cations, e.g., potassium, calcium, sodium, barium by th e anion exchangers Amberlite CG-400 or Dowex Ag 1x8 with 0.25M HNO3 in etha nol - methanol mixture as eluent in the apparatus specially constructed for this purpose. Determination of Sr-90 was done on the low-level gas-flow be ta-counter and by Cherenkow counting on the liquid-scintillation counter fe w hours after the separation. It was shown that this procedure might be suc cessfully applied for rapid determination of Sr-90 in soil samples and othe r natural samples in a timesaving manner.