Provenance of unknown plutonium material

The determination of the provenance of ‘unknown’ plutonium material is demonstrated through a simulation study based on an isotopic fingerprinting approach. Plutonium of known provenance was considered as the ‘unknown’ nuclear material in order to evaluate the potential of the approach and verify its predictive capabilities. Factor analysis was used to compare the Pu isotopic composition of the ‘unknown’ material with Pu isotopic compositions simulating well known spent fuels from a range of commercial nuclear power stations. The provenance of the ‘unknown material’ is assigned to the commercial fuel with which exhibits the highest degree of similarity with respect to the Pu composition. The approach appears promising since it accurately predicted the provenance of the one ‘unknown’ sample considered; nevertheless, the approach is still at the development stage. Important challenging issues related to the simulation uncertainties and its testing on real laboratory samples have to be explored prior to evaluating the potential of the approach.