Development of the measurement for radium using germanium detector with molecular recognition resin

Abstract

High-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors are widely used for the measurement of the low concentrated radioactivities. For the Super-Kamiokande-Gadolinium project, the concentration of radium in Gd$_2$(SO$_4$)$_3{\cdot}$8H$_2$O is determined by using HPGe detectors. The amount of the sample is generally limited by the size of the sample space of a HPGe detector. This leads the limitation of the detector efficiency. A new method of chemical extraction using the molecular recognition resin was developed to minimize this problem. Using the developed method, radium could be extracted from Gd$_2$(SO$_4$)$_3{\cdot}$8H$_2$O and concentrated to smaller amount of the resin at a recovery rate of 81$\pm$4\%, which was estimated by using barium as a recovery monitor. This made it possible to set the sample closer to an HPGe crystal and reduce self screening effect, resulting in increasing the detection efficiency of an HPGe detector. The developed method is reported on this letter.