METHOD OF DETERMINING SILICON CONTENT IN URANIUM MATERIALS Russian patent published in 2012 - IPC G01N31/00 

FIELD: chemistry.

SUBSTANCE: inductively coupled plasma mass-spectrometric method of determining silicon content, for example, in uranium hexafluoride is realised using a dynamic reaction cell with ammonia as the reaction gas, with hydrolysis of the uranium hexafluoride sample, dilution of the obtained solution to uranium concentration of 1 g/l, plotting a calibration curve, measuring intensity of the silicon analytical signal in the analysed sample. The unknown silicon content is found from the calibration curve. The method does not require preliminary separation of silicon from the analysed sample, and to suppress undesirable spectral interference, ammonia reaction gas is used, which is released into the cell at a constant rate of 0.24 ml/min with selected optimum operating parameters of the cell quadrupole: high-frequency (RPq=0.6B) and constant voltage (RPa=OB), which enables direct, reliable detection of silicon in solutions when its content is on the level of 5 mcg/l with uranium content of 1 g/l.

EFFECT: high accuracy and rapidness of analysis.

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