Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separation isolates analytes. Qualitative analysis identifies analytes, while quantitative analysis determines the numerical amount or concentration.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is now sponsored by the United States Department of Energy and administered by UT–Battelle, LLC.
An ion source is a device that creates atomic and molecular ions. Ion sources are used to form ions for mass spectrometers, optical emission spectrometers, particle accelerators, ion implanters and ion engines.
Specific activity is the activity per unit mass of a radionuclide and is a physical property of that radionuclide. It is usually given in units of becquerel per kilogram (Bq/kg), but another commonly used unit of specific activity is the curie per gram (Ci/g).
A glow discharge is a plasma formed by the passage of electric current through a gas. It is often created by applying a voltage between two electrodes in a glass tube containing a low-pressure gas. When the voltage exceeds a value called the striking voltage, the gas ionization becomes self-sustaining, and the tube glows with a colored light. The color depends on the gas used.
Mount Arafat is a granodiorite hill about 20 km (12 mi) southeast of Mecca, in the province of the same name in Saudi Arabia. It is approximately 70 m (230 ft) in height, with its highest point sitting at an elevation of 454 metres (1,490 ft).
Potassium ferrate is an inorganic compound with the formula K2FeO4. It is the potassium salt of ferric acid. Potassium ferrate is a powerful oxidizing agent with applications in green chemistry, organic synthesis, and cathode technology.
Elemental analysis is a process where a sample of some material is analyzed for its elemental and sometimes isotopic composition. Elemental analysis can be qualitative, and it can be quantitative. Elemental analysis falls within the ambit of analytical chemistry, the instruments involved in deciphering the chemical nature of our world.
Technetium-99 (99Tc) is an isotope of technetium which decays with a half-life of 211,000 years to stable ruthenium-99, emitting beta particles, but no gamma rays. It is the most significant long-lived fission product of uranium fission, producing the largest fraction of the total long-lived radiation emissions of nuclear waste. Technetium-99 has a fission product yield of 6.0507% for thermal neutron fission of uranium-235.
Atomic emission spectroscopy (AES) is a method of chemical analysis that uses the intensity of light emitted from a flame, plasma, arc, or spark at a particular wavelength to determine the quantity of an element in a sample. The wavelength of the atomic spectral line in the emission spectrum gives the identity of the element while the intensity of the emitted light is proportional to the number of atoms of the element. The sample may be excited by various methods.
Radioanalytical chemistry focuses on the analysis of sample for their radionuclide content. Various methods are employed to purify and identify the radioelement of interest through chemical methods and sample measurement techniques.
Nuclear forensics is the investigation of nuclear materials to find evidence for the source, the trafficking, and the enrichment of the material. The material can be recovered from various sources including dust from the vicinity of a nuclear facility, or from the radioactive debris following a nuclear explosion.
Resonance ionization is a process in optical physics used to excite a specific atom beyond its ionization potential to form an ion using a beam of photons irradiated from a pulsed laser light. In resonance ionization, the absorption or emission properties of the emitted photons are not considered, rather only the resulting excited ions are mass-selected, detected and measured. Depending on the laser light source used, one electron can be removed from each atom so that resonance ionization produces an efficient selectivity in two ways: elemental selectivity in ionization and isotopic selectivity in measurement.
John Michael Ramsey is an American analytical chemist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He currently holds the position of Minnie N. Goldby Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. His current research with the university focuses on microscale and nanoscale devices such as microchip electrospray, microscale Ion trap mass spectrometers, and microfluidic point of care devices. He is ranked #2 in the "Giants of Nano" field on The Analytical Scientist Power List.
Julie Ezold is a nuclear engineer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She is campaign manager for the 252-Californium Campaign and was involved with the discovery of Tennessine.
Ian Croudace is a British geochemist, academic, researcher and entrepreneur. He is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Radioactivity and Environmental Geochemistry at the University of Southampton and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Croudace has published over 200 research articles and has supervised 32 PhD projects over his career. He is director at Raddec International Limited. He is the author of the book Micro-XRF Studies of Sediment Cores: Applications of a non-destructive tool for the environmental sciences and Executive Editor for the Quaternary International Special Issue entitled "Advances in Data Quantification and Application of High Resolution XRF Core Scanners". He specializes in analytical, environmental and isotope geochemistry and radioactivity. His research interests range from Micro-XRF analysis of sediments to Forensic Geochemistry to Radio-analytical developments.
Uranyl oxalate (UO2C2O4) is a pale yellow powdered uranyl salt. It is often encountered in industrial nuclear processes at both the front and back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle. Due to its hygroscopicity, uranyl oxalate rarely exists in the dehydrated state and is usually instead found in the trihydrate form (UO2C2O4·3H2O) at room temperature. At room temperature, the powder exhibits a monoclinic crystal structure in the P21/c space group.
Julia Laskin is the William F. and Patty J. Miller Professor of Analytical Chemistry at Purdue University. Her research is focused on the fundamental understanding of ion-surface collisions, understanding of phenomena underlying chemical analysis of large molecules in complex heterogeneous environments, and the development of new instrumentation and methods in preparative and imaging mass spectrometry.
Ljiljana Paša-Tolić is a Croatian research scientist who is a research fellow in Functional and Systems Biology at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. She is responsible for developing capability in mass spectrometry at the PNNL Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory. Her research looks to develop analytical techniques to modify protein abundance.
Pavel P. Povinec is Professor of Physics at Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of the Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia). Head of the Centre for Nuclear and Accelerator Technologies (CENTA)
