Determination of natural uranium in biological samples using the solid state nuclear track detector method

For the solution of most of the problems which are connected to the biological and physiological role of natural uranium in plants and animal organisms about 10⁻¹⁴ g uranium should be determined. However most of the physico-chemical methods for the determination of natural uranium in biomaterials are time-consuming and possess considerable error. On the basis of addition and inner standard methods a version of Solid State Nuclear Track Detectors (SSNTD) method has been developed in order to determine the natural uranium in biospecimens. According to the experimental data simple relations have been obtained for the calculation of uranium concentration in biomaterial and minium uranium concentration in biosolution which can be measured by the detector used. Under irradiation of SSNTD at a thermal neutron flux of (3–5)·10¹⁵n·cm⁻² the detector sensitivity is 2.30·10⁻⁹ g U/ml for glass detectors; 9.60·10⁻¹⁰g U/ml for the detectors made from artificial mica.