Uranium(VI) On-Chip Microliter Concentration Measurements in a Highly Extended UV–Visible Absorbance Linearity Range
Résumé
The reduction of effluents deriving from
analytical control is a serious concern in the nuclear industry,
for both production and R&D units. In this work we report an
alternative methodology for the standard UV−vis absorbance
analyses for actinides concentration monitoring along the
plutonium uranium refining extraction (PUREX) process. This
methodology, based on photonic lab-on-a-chip (PhLoC)
technology, enables drastic sampling reduction down to a few
microliters and simultaneously allows to track concentrations
over several orders of magnitude while maintaining a detection
linearity range. A PhLoC microfluidic platform was specifically
designed to allow online sample injection with zero dead
volume connectivity and the on-chip spectrophotometric
approach, based on a multiple optical path configuration, was tested for the determination of uranium(VI) concentrations
from 0.1 to 200 g L−1, showing that linearity is maintained within high levels of confidence. These results provide the proof of
concept for the transposition of current analytical methods for actinides, including plutonium, to microfluidic systems.