Standards Development

Scope

This part of ISO 7097 describes an analytical method for the determination of uranium in samples from pure product materials such as U metal, UO2, UO3, uranyl nitrate hexahydrate, uranium hexafluoride and U3O8 from the nuclear fuel cycle. This procedure is sufficiently accurate and precise to be used for nuclear materials accountability. This method can be used directly for the analysis of most uranium and uranium oxide nuclear reactor fuels, either irradiated or un-irradiated, and of uranium nitrate product solutions. Fission products equivalent to up to 10 % burn-up of heavy atoms do not interfere, and other elements which could cause interference are not normally present in sufficient quantity to affect the result significantly. The method recommends that an aliquot of sample is weighed and that a mass titration is used, in order to obtain improved precision and accuracy. This does not preclude the use of alternative techniques which could give equivalent performance. The use of automatic device(s) in the performance of some critical steps of the method has some advantages, mainly in the case of routine analysis.