What is ISO 22515 about?
Water testing helps you to determine if your treatment system is performing correctly, or if the quality of your source water has changed. Before releasing treated waste into natural water bodies, liquid scintillation counting (LSC) helps you to determine iron-55 (55Fe) activity concentration in water.
ISO 22515 specifies the LSC test method for the determination of 55Fe activity concentration in samples of all types of water. Using currently available liquid scintillation counters, this test method can measure the 55Fe activity concentrations in the range from the limit of detection up to 120 mBq l-1. These values can be achieved with a counting time between 7 200 s and 10 800 s for a sample volume from 0,5 l to 1,5 l. Higher activity concentrations can be measured by either diluting the sample or using smaller sample aliquots or both.
Note: These performance indicators are wholly dependent on the measurement regimes in individual laboratories; in particular, the detection limits are influenced by the amount of stable iron present.
Who is ISO 22515 for?
ISO 22515 on LSC for water testing is useful for:
- Government laboratories
- Industries that release wastewater in natural water bodies
- Geological scientists
- Nuclear power plants
- Public water supply systems
Why should you use ISO 22515?
Radioactivity from several naturally occurring and anthropogenic sources is present throughout the environment. Thus, water bodies (e.g., surface waters, groundwaters, sea waters) can contain radionuclides of natural, human-made, or both origins.
ISO 22515 specifies radionuclide authorized concentration limits for liquid effluent discharged to the environment and radionuclide guidance levels for water bodies and drinking waters for planned, existing, and emergency exposure situations.
ISO 22515 guides you through LSC for water testing. This test method can be adapted so that the character limits, decision threshold, detection limit, and uncertainties ensure that the radionuclide activity concentrations test results can be verified to be below the guidance levels required by a national authority for either planned/existing situations or for an emergency.