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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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What’s in your Dubai chocolate? Nuclear scientists test pistachios for toxins
For the uninitiated, Dubai chocolate is a candy bar filled with pistachio and tahini cream and crispy pastry recently popularized by social media influencers. While it’s easy to dismiss as a viral craze now past its peak, the nutty green confection has spiked global pistachio demand, and growers and processors are ramping up production. That means more pistachios need to be tested for aflatoxins—a byproduct of a common crop mold.
P. K. Kuroda, M. P. Menon
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 10 | Number 1 | May 1961 | Pages 70-74
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE61-A25932
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The occurrence of a number of fission products in pitchblende and in nonirradiated natural and depleted U salts with 10-4 dis/sec/g-U, was recently reported by Kuroda and co-workers. The following nuclides were detected: Sr89, 90, 91, 92, Mo99, I131, 132, 133, 134, 135, and Ba140. These fission products are formed predominantly by the spontaneous fission of U238, and it is possible to obtain the general shape of the mass-yield curve for the spontaneous fission of U238 from the equilibrium activities of the fission products found in nonirradiated U salts. The spontaneous fission half-life of U238 can also be calculated from these data. Radiochemical procedures have been developed for the determination of each fission product, in which a quantity ranging from 0.1 to 1 disintegration/sec of the fission product activity is isolated from kilogram quantities of U salts, purified, and then counted. Where the half-life of the fission product was several months, U minerals instead of U salts, were used. Removal of the bulk of the U by a liquid extraction method was found to be necessary and/or advantageous in most cases, although it was possible to precipitate certain fission products directly from a concentrated solution of the U salts. A new procedure is currently under investigation for the isolation and quantitative determination of the isotopes of Ce by a liquid-liquid extraction method. Ce(IV) can be extracted from a 10 M HNO3 solution by a 1 to 4 mixture of TBP and CCl4 with high extraction efficiency, and further purified by a combination of oxidation-reduction and liquid-liquid extraction procedures.
