Determination of alpha-emitting uranium isotopes in soft tissues by solvent extraction and alpha-spectrometry

A radiochemical procedure has been developed for the determination of alpha-emitting isotopes of uranium ((238)U, (235)U and (234)U) in soft tissues. Known amounts of sample are spiked with (232)U internal tracer and wet-ashed. Uranium is co-precipitated with iron hydroxide as carrier, and extracted into 20% trilaurylamine solution in xylene after dissolution of the precipitate in 10M hydrochloric acid. The uranium, after stripping into an aqueous phase, is electro-deposited onto a platinum disc and counted by alpha-spectrometry. The radiochemical recovery ranges from 60 to 85% for bovine liver samples. The average radiochemical recoveries for human tissues vary from 53 to 78%.