Short Communication on “Direct compositional quantification of (U-Th)O2 - MOX nuclear fuel using ns-UV-LIBS and chemometric regression models”

The determination of uranium with composition varying from 0% to 35 wt% in (Th-U)O2 mixed oxide fuel using laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) utilizing partial least square regression (PLSR) has been demonstrated. Good agreement between expected and experiment results using 266 nm, 532 nm and 1064 nm was shown. The analytical results at 266 nm of 2-3% precision and ∼1% accuracy (bias) satisfy the acceptance criteria range for chemical analysis in the nuclear industry.