AN IN-LINE MONITOR USING LITHIUM SILICATE GLASS BEADS AS SOLID SCINTILLATOR ROR CATION EXCHANGE ELUTION CHROMATOGRAPHY

A new type of in-line monitoring system used to monitor radioactive nuclideswith α or soft β radiation in the effluent from a high pressure ion exchangecolumn is described. The beads made of cerium-impregnated lithium silicate glassare used as scintillation material. They are filled into a quartz glass tube to forma flow cell. By reducing the diameter of glass beads to the average range of α orsoft β radiation in solution, the absolute detection efficiencies for ~(241)Am, ~(242)Cma radiations have reached 85.8%, 92.8% respectively, For ~(14)C, ~(90)Sr-~(90)Y β radia-lions, 62.1%, 88.6% respectively. These values are comparable with those achievedby in-line liquid scintillation technique. When the total amount of ~(241)Am addedinto the column is reduced to 7.4Bq it is still possible to obtain a clear chroma-togrophy peak (half peak width=0.22ml).