A scintillation probe for efficient counting of low energy beta rays in the elution from liquid or gas chromatographs

Abstract A counting system is described for the continuous scanning of soft beta ray emitters in the eluate from liquid or gas chromatographic columns. A relatively small portion of the column stream is diverted through the counting system while the main portion is passed through a light absorbance measurement and recording device to a fraction collector. The stream to be counted is mixed with liquid scintillator by cavitation and then nebulized into the counting chamber using a suitable gas to give a counting efficiency equivalent to that of vial counting. Radioactive counts and absorbance measurements can be plotted simultaneously on a chart recorder. The convenience and efficiency of the system was demonstrated by the recording of the counting and absorbance data for an aqueous elution of s-RNA, DNA and DNA-like RNA from a methylated albumin column.