Trace determination of beryllium by heavy ion activation analysis

A novel procedure for measuring the concentration of trace beryllium in different samples has been studied using¹¹B heavy ion activation analysis. The specific reaction,⁹Be/¹¹B, 2n/¹⁸F, is sensitive and selective when using a 10 MeV¹¹Be³⁺ bombardment energy. The detection limit for a nondestructive analysis is 0.1 ng for a 2 h irradiation in a A cm^–2 beam current. A precision of 12% was achieved at the 50 g g^–1 level. Beryllium has been determined in a standard beryllium-copper alloy NBS-SRM C1123. Glass samples containing up to 61 trace elements were also analyzed nondestructively. When using a clean vacuum irradiation chamber, the technique might allow ultra-trace determinations, dealing with solid samples of a few milligrams.