Rapid high precision analysis of uranium content in Texas ores using gamma-ray spectrometry

Abstract

The nuclear fuel cycle relies on the accurate and reliable quantification of uranium content in ores. Here, we offer a gamma-ray spectrometry method employing high purity germanium (HPGe) detectors to determine the total uranium content of a small ore sample from south Texas after accounting for gamma-ray self-attenuation. We show the quantification of uranium content using the 1001.0 keV gamma-ray produced by the daughter product 234mPa from the 238U series. We utilized a152Eu point-source to determine an attenuation correction factor for the ore sample at varying gamma-ray energies to significantly improve the accuracy of the method. Through the comparator method, we show a quick non-destructive method for quantifying the total uranium content in a Texas ore of 6.17 +/- 0.09 wt% with a 1.52 % relative uncertainty within a 2 h count time utilizing 26.5 g of material.