Determination of ⁴⁰K Radioactivity in the Soil Using Energy Dispersive X Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer

The ⁴⁰K radioactive of the pressed powder sample was determined by Epsilon 5 high-energy polarized energy dispersive X ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometer. The correlation coefficient of the standard curve method was 0.991 0, the precision was 2.98% and the relative deviation of the measurement standard samples was up to 6.40%, which showed that the precision and accuracy of the method were also good. Simultaneous measurement of seven soil samples using this method and γ-spectrometer were carried, the resluts of two analytical methods were compared using a paired t-test by SPSS program, which showed that there was no significant difference in the two sets of data, P＞0.05. It indicated that EDXRF could be a potential simple method for analyzing ⁴⁰K radioactive in soil samples.