A paper published in February by scientists from the JRC Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) represents a significant advance in the ‘fingerprinting’ of plutonium contamination, giving nuclear safety and safeguards authorities more information on how nuclear material was produced and helping to identify sources of environmental contamination.
Using a technique known as Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (TIMS), the researchers measured the ratio of plutonium isotopes with unprecedented accuracy in reference samples obtained from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, and also on soil and moss samples collected from the site of the Chernobyl accident.