Applications of inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry in environmental radiochemistry

Now that the Cold War is over, a new nuclear threat is facing mankind. During our rush to produce and perfect nuclear weapons during the Past half-century, the environment was seriously compromised by contamination from radioactive waste. Environmental chemists are on the ''front line'' challenging this threat. Dr, Jeff Crain of the Chemical Technology Division of the Argonne National Laboratory is one such chemist. In this column Crain gives us some perspective on the analysis and characterization of environmental samples contaminated with radioactive nuclides and compares conventional decay-counting techniques with inductively coupled Plasma mass spectrometry.