Abstract
A study was made to characterize aerosols of plutonium and uranium with a two-stage, size-selective sampler. The first plutonium area was sampled with a LASL-type cyclone air sampler using a membrane filter as a second stage with an adjacent membrane filter as a gross sampler. Gross and second-stage samples were alpha-counted to determine the “respirable” fraction of airborne material. The second plutonium area and the uranium area were sampled with paired HASL-type 1/2-inch cyclone samplers using membrane filters as a second stage. By analyzing material collected in the cyclone and on the second stage, we calculated the fraction of the sampled material in the “respirable” range. The results of sampling the second plutonium area with HASL-type 1/2-inch cyclones at flow rates of 18 and 9 liters/min indicate that both sampling rates give similar values for “percent respirable” for this fine aerosol. Some samples were treated with NTA film to identify single alpha-emitting particles. Particle size measurements on these samples were made by alpha track counting and with a light-field microscope.