Effects of ammonium fluoride on the decomposition of geochemical samples as fluorinating agent and its analytical application.
In this work, the effects of ammonium fluoride on the decomposition of geochemical samples were investigated by analyzing some certified reference materials (CRM). The major and minor elements were detected by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), while trace and ultra-trace elements were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Decomposition time, temperature and the amount of ammonium fluoride were studied in detail. In the process of sample decomposition, on one hand, ammonium fluoride was used as the fluorinating agent because ammonium fluoride can be dissociated under acid medium to yield fluoride ions to attack silicon compound effectively. On the other hand, ammonium fluoride was used as a latent solvent since ammonium salt may dissolve insoluble fluorine compounds. The removal of insoluble fluorine compounds decreased the memory effect on digestion vessels caused by fluoride coprecipitation. By testing CRMs and many real samples, it was found that trace and ultra-trace elements could be digested using ammonium fluoride instead of hydrofluoric acid and the dissolution ratios of major and minor elements, for example Al, Ca, Mg, Fe, Na and K, improved noticeably. Moreover, the use of ammonium fluoride instead of hydrofluoric acid contributes to a greener environment and safer for operators.
Low-temperature fusion using NH4HSO4 and NH4HF2 for rapid determination of Pu in soil and sediment samples.
Two fusion methods were established for rapid determination of Pu in soil and sediment samples. The methods consisted of NH4HSO4 or NH4HF2 fusion procedures incorporated with procedures for CaF2/LaF3 co-precipitation, extraction chromatography and SF-ICP-MS measurement. The fusion procedures were done on a portable hot plate instead of in a cumbersome muffle furnace and took only 15 min heating-up time from room temperature to 250 °C and 15 min fusion time at 250 °C. Chemical recoveries of Pu after completing the NH4HSO4 and NH4HF2 fusion methods for 0.5-1 g sample were approximately 70% and more than 90%, respectively, and decreased with the increase of sample weight from 0.5 g to 5 g. Sediment samples were pre-ignited at different temperatures ranging from 450 °C to 1000 °C to form refractory fractions of Pu, with which the dissolution rates of Pu by the NH4HSO4 and NH4HF2 fusion were investigated. With the increase of pre-ignition temperature of the sediment samples, the dissolution rates of Pu from the samples prepared by NH4HSO4 fusion declined dramatically from near 100% for 450 °C to 8% for 1000 °C. In contrast, the NH4HF2 fusion was capable of completely releasing Pu from samples that were pre-ignited at temperatures over 450 °C to 1000 °C, which was comparable to releases obtained by the hazardous and time-consuming HNO3-HF digestion, and was superior to the conventional HNO3 digestion. Additionally, because HF is not used in any procedure of the NH4HF2 fusion, a safer and greener alternative to NH4HSO4 fusion and HNO3-HF digestion is realized for rapid Pu determination in environmental samples for nuclear emergency response and application in environmental studies.
The parallel waveform relaxation stochastic Runge–Kutta method for stochastic differential equations
For large-scale non-autonomous Stratonovich stochastic differential equations, we study a very general parallel waveform relaxation process which is on the basis of stochastic Runge–Kutta (SRK) method of mean-square order 1.0 in this literature. The convergence of the whole parallel numerical iterative scheme can be guaranteed and the scheme provides better properties in terms of decreasing the load of the computation and operating speed. At the same time, the related limit method is also introduced as the continuous approximation derived from the iterative scheme. In the approximation interval, it is worth noting that the mean-square order of the parallel numerical iterative scheme can be kept consistent with the previous SRK method at any arbitrary time point, not just at discrete points. Some numerical simulations are presented to elaborate the computing efficiency of the parallel numerical iterative scheme.