A correction method for the peak tailing backgrounds for accurate isotope ratio measurements of uranium in ultra trace levels using thermal ionization mass spectrometry

Abstract

A new method in thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) was developed to correct peak tailing backgrounds in the isotope ratio measurements of uranium in ultra trace levels for higher accuracy. Two different uranium standard reference materials (U005 and U030) were used to construct databases of signal intensities at mass 234 u and mass 236 u, which correspond to the two uranium minor isotopes, and signal intensity of 238U. Correlations between peak tailing backgrounds and 238U were obtained by least-squares regression on calculated backgrounds at mass 234 u and mass 236 u with respect to the signal intensity of 238U followed by separation of the peak tails of the two major isotopes of uranium ( 235U and 238U), which enables us to obtain a master equation for peak tailing background correction on all kinds of samples. Verification of the correction method was carried out using U010 and IRMM-040a.