Implementation of the k0-NAA method in the NAA#3 irradiation hole of the HANARO research reactor

The NAA#3 irradiation hole in the 30 MW HANARO research reactor of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), with a thermal neutron flux of 1.26×1014 cm−2 s−1, has been regarded as suitable for the application of k0-based neutron activation analysis (k0-NAA). The objectives of the present work were: (a) to characterize the NAA#3 irradiation hole via the determination of the neutron spectrum parameters required for the method, (b) to calibrate the HPGe gamma-ray spectrometer system via establishing the detection efficiency curves and (c) to assess the quality of the k0-NAA method by the analysis of six certified reference materials, three of which were of biological nature and three of environmental origin. The results obtained indicated that, by using the k0-NAA method, approximately 25 or 35 elements could be quantitatively determined in the biological and environmental samples, respectively. The deviations between the experimental and the certified values for the determined elements were generally within 12% with u-scores mostly below 2. The results prove that the k0-NAA method, implemented in the HANARO research reactor, is applicable for multi-element analysis in biological and environmental samples with a rather high analytical performance and that the method is available for further practical applications.