Tritium in foods

The qualities of selected scintillation systems for the measurement of very low tritium content in water samples from foods were investigated in the liquid scintillation spectrometer. The influence of the parameters of the measuring method on the detection limit was defined by figures of merit. Optimum values were obtained with an emulsion system, which consists of PPO, bis-MSB, p-xylene and Triton N-101, and which takes up 40% water. 0.16 to 0.18 pCi/ml water are detectable with this system. Reference water, which is poor in tritium, was produced by combustion of propane.