The estimation of barium in biological material by neutron activation analysis

Barium is estimated in biological material by thermal neutron activation analysis and measurement of¹³⁹Ba by γ-counting. The biological material is digested with nitric acid and scavenged with ferric hydroxide. A special fluoride precipitation removes calcium and strontium and the barium is recovered as the chromate. The method allows the analysis of up to 40 samples per day and the sensitivity is 0.1 μg after irradiation for 85 mins at 4·10¹²n·cm⁻²·sec⁻¹.