Preparation of high purity plutonium oxide standards for radiochemical Analysis

Due to the lack of suitable high level plutonium solution standards from a national accredited laboratory or commercial vendors, a well-characterized plutonium oxide was used to prepared radiochemistry instrument calibration standards and working standards at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). All the dilution and aliquoting steps were performed gravimetrically. The counting efficiency of a liquid scintillation counter obtained from the alpha activity of this plutonium oxide was compared to a commercial 241Am standardized solution. The results agreed to within 0.05%. The aliquots of the plutonium standard solutions and dilutions were then sealed in glass ampules for long term storage.