Development of field-based separations for the rapid identification of uranium and plutonium

Method development for rapid processing and purification of uranium and plutonium was performed on a gas pressurized extraction chromatographic system using a single column of Eichrom’s DGA extraction resin. The demonstration of the U and Pu purification scheme provided in-line flowsheet processing in under 2 h with low reagent volumes (100–240 μL) for flowsheet processing stages. Quantitative recovery for U and Pu (95 and 98 %, respectively) with high selectivity between the target actinide analytes (99 % purity) in three bed volumes was achieved in the presence of a potential, environmental, interfering contaminant (iron).