Direct Quantitation of 135Cs in Spent Cs Adsorbent Used for the Decontamination of Radiocesium-Containing Water by Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry

The long-term safety assessment of spent Cs adsorbents produced during the decontamination of radiocesium-containing water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant requires one to estimate their 135Cs content prior to final disposal. 135Cs is usually quantified by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), which necessitates the elution of Cs from Cs adsorbents. However, this approach suffers from the high radiation dose from 137Cs that is present in the contaminated water and Cs adsorption irreversibility. To address these challenges, we herein employed laser ablation ICP-MS for direct quantitation of 135Cs in Cs adsorbents and used a model Cs adsorbent prepared by immersion of a commercially available Cs adsorbent into radiocesium-containing liquid waste to verify the developed technique. Crushing and subsequent coating with a nitrocellulose-based curing agent provided a thin flat surface and thus allowed for stable solid sampling during laser ablation. The use of the 135Cs/137Cs ratio and 137Cs radioactivity obtained by gamma spectrometry achieved simple and precise quantitation of 135Cs. The obtained 135Cs/137Cs ratio of 0.41 ± 0.02 well agreed with that obtained for the original liquid waste sample by solution nebulization measurements, and the proposed method was concluded to be suitable for large-scale 135Cs quantitation, requiring only very small (