A new methodology for determination of water of crystallization for uranyl nitrate samples using scanning electron microscope, energy dispersive X-ray, and MCPN-5

Abstract

The scanning electron microscope and its attached X-ray unit are valid tools for conducting surveys to determine whether or not the studied samples contain nuclear material. To verify their structure, ten solid uranyl nitrate specimens with various enrichment values (0.1 % to 1 %) were analyzed. The used samples have different numbers of hydrated water molecules; consequently, the properties of these materials in analytical chemistry and computational methods are not the same. Scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray are used in this work to visualize and analyze the sample of hexahydrate uranyl nitrate (natural 0.72 %). The specimen has been screened under optimal microscopy circumstances. In spite of the reliability of these tools, they are not accurate, particularly when carrying out complete qualitative and quantitative analysis. With the aid of the Monte Carlo code (MCNP-5), the approach presented here can resolve the limitations that tackle the microscope and X-ray testing. The suggested approach relates to the Monte Carlo calculations and X-ray elemental analysis. This relationship depends on the chemical composition of the material and was developed like software. The concentration and count rate calculation software has been established to determine the water of crystallization for uranyl nitrate samples.

Keywords

• uranyl nitrate
• concentration
• mcnp-5 code
• crystallization water