This course will review the fundamental aspects of radioactivity, plus specific instrumentation and chemical analysis. The review topics include: types of ionizing radiation, units, nuclear stability, binding energy, growth and decay. The instrumentation and analysis will focus primarily on liquid scintillation and gamma spectroscopy analysis, the selection of energy range for quantification, counting statistics, efficiency correction (e.g. quenching), and background correction. Advanced topics include reactor life cycle and nuclear waste management, plus other topics that may vary from year to year: alpha spectroscopy; sample preparation techniques, decay chains (alpha emitters), isotope geology and dating, environmental actinide chemistry, etc. PREREQ: CHMI 3116 & MATH 2246 or CHMI 2516. (lec 3, lab 3) cr 3.
