Neutron activation analysis of biological samples at the radiochemistry division of IPEN-CNEN/SP.

Neutron activation analysis is a very useful method for determination of a great number of elements in biological samples. At the Radiochemistry Division of the IPEN-CNEN/SP, this method is being extensively applied to study several materials, such as extracts from medicinal plants, human hair, snake venoms, human lungs, food-stuffs, and corn samples. Both instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and radiochemical neutron activation analysis (RNAA) are used to analyze real samples, as well as biological standard reference materials to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the results.