The objective of this document is to characterize the gaseous effluents tritium and carbon-14 generated by nuclear facilities during operation and decommissioning and occurring in the same chemical species as hydrogen and carbon, e. g. as water vapour (HTO), hydrogen gas (HT, TT), carbon dioxide (¹⁴CO₂), carbon monoxide (¹⁴CO), methane (CH₃T, ¹⁴CH₄). It concerns measurements on samples that are representative of a certain volume stream or volume of discharge during a given period of time and of the corresponding volume discharged. The result is therefore expressed in becquerels.

This document applies to samples that were obtained by sampling methods according to ISO 20041-1^[9] and describes

—     analysis methods for the determination of tritium and carbon-14 activities by liquid scintillation counting, and

—     calculation methods to determine the tritium activities discharged as tritiated water vapour (HTO) and tritium in other chemical compounds (non-HTO) as well as carbon-14 activities discharged as carbon dioxide (¹⁴CO₂) and carbon-14 in other chemical compounds (non-¹⁴CO₂).

This document does not apply to tritium and carbon-14 activity concentrations in the environmental air, e.g. in the vicinity of nuclear installations.

The accountability rules of the activities discharged necessary for the establishment of regulatory reports do not fall within the scope of this document and are the responsibility of the regulatory bodies.