Determination of radioactive cobalt in reactor coolant water by solvent extraction

A rapid extraction separation method is described for the radiochenaical determination of cobalt-58 and cobalt-60 in reactor coolant water. After adjustment of the pH of the sample water to 5.0-5.5, cobalt diethyldithiocarbamate is extracted with benzene. Other nuclides, e.g., manganese-54 and -56, copper-64 and iron-59, which are usually present in reactor coolant water, are also extracted together with cobalt. However, they can be readily removed by washing the extract with mercury(II) chloride solution. The cobalt-58 and -60 activities are measured by gamma counting of an aliquot of the washed extract. Trace amounts of radioactive cobalt in 500 ml of sample water can be quantitatively extracted without the use of carrier. The separation could be finished in 15 min and an average recovery of 99.5 % was obtained, with a relative standard deviation of 1.4% (25 experiments).