Tritium Laboratory

Tritium Laboratory was established in 2002. It performs tritium (³H) measurements in various water samples such as rainwater, tap water, groundwater. The determination of tritium concentration in water samples of an area can be used in tritium dating techniques.

The results are valuable for conducting hydrological investigations on water resources such as lakes, rivers and underground water aquifers (see Publications and a relevant report). For more details about the use of tritium and other istopes (¹⁴C) in isotope hydrology please see the book :"Environmental Isotopes in the Hydrological Cycle : Principles and Applications".

Because of the low concentration of tritium in underground water samples, the samples can be enriched in tritium by electrolysis so that lower limit of detection can be achieved. Tritium Laboratoryis equipped with a specially designed electrolysis line which can electrolyze up to 1 L of water sample and can reduce the lower limit of detection by a factor of 30. This means that tritiumconcentrations can be detected for concentrations down to 1 TU ( 1TU = 0.11919Bq/L).

Tritium Laboratory provides and other radionuclides analysis in water samples such as radium, radon and uranium isotopes, for assessing the radiological quality of a water resource and for U/Th dating purposes (see Publications and relevant websites).