Investigations on the comparator technique used in epithermal neutron activation analysis

The possible extension of the comparator technique of reactor neutron activation analysis into the field of epithermal neutron activation has been investigated. Ruthenium was used for multi-isotopic comparator. Experiments show that conversion of the so-called reference k-factors—determined by irradiation with reactor neutrons—into k_epi-factors usable at activation under cadmium filter, can be evaluated with fair accuracy. Sources and extent of errors and their contribution to the final error of analysis are discussed. Based on the paper presented at the 2nd European Conference on Analytical Chemistry, 25–30 August, 1975, Budapest, Hungary.