Summary
NAA can perform non-destructive analyses on solids, liquids, suspensions, slurries, and gases with no or minimal preparation. Due to the penetrating nature of incident neutrons and resultant gamma rays the technique provides a true bulk analysis. As different radioisotopes have different half-lives, counting can be delayed to allow interfering species to decay eliminating interference. Until the introduction of ICP-AES and PIXE, NAA was the standard analytical method for performing multi-element analyses with minimum detection limits in the sub-ppm range. Accuracy of NAA is in the region of 5%, and relative precision is often better than 0.1%. There are two noteworthy drawbacks to the use of NAA; even though the technique is essentially non-destructive the irradiated sample will remain radioactive for many years after the initial analysis, requiring handling and disposal protocols for low-level to medium-level radioactive material; also the number of suitable activation nuclear reactors is declining, with a lack of irradiation facilities the technique has declined in popularity and become more expensive.
Read more about this topic: Neutron Activation Analysis
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