Determination of Lithium by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis

The fast transfer system in the DR 2 reactor for irradiation at a thermal neutron flux density of 1013 n·cm−2·sec−1 was used for the determination of lithium by the7Li(n, γ)8Li reaction. β-counting with a large perspex Cerenkov detector begun at 0.3 s after the end of irradiation, and multi-scaler data was accumulated in 300 channels at 0.1 s per channel. With a suitable choice of discrimination level only16N and background interfere, and the 0.84 s half-life of8Li was resolved by the method of weighted least squares. Results are presented for 36 international geochemical reference materials, and for a few biological samples, including BOWEN's kale and the NBS Standard Reference Material 1571 Orchard Leaves.