How To Find the Needle in a Hay Stack: Tracing the History of a Nuclear Installation

Environmental Sampling (ES) and subsequent analysis techniques are powerful tools to verify declared nuclear activities, as well as to assist in the detection of undeclared nuclear activities and facilities. ES is based on the collection of dust material by swiping surfaces in or around nuclear sites, e.g., facilities for the enrichment of uranium. This dust reflects the activities carried out at the site and may contain uranium particles with an isotopic composition characteristic for the process in the facility. Therefore, the isotopic composition of the particles can be considered to be a fingerprint of a nuclear plant or production process. Mass spectrometry and microscopy techniques will be described which are employed for the analysis of particles that may contain nuclear material. Apart from the isotopic composition other quantities such as the element distribution in a particle, its shape or chemical composition can be studied. The aim is to move towards nuclear forensics investigations on particles similar to the ones already carried out on bulk nuclear material.