5. Conclusion

Activation analysis occupies a special place among analysis methods. It is generally reserved for trace analysis in difficult cases. Like other methods, activation analysis is not immune to numerous causes of error, which are all the more difficult to identify, and therefore avoid, when the levels to be measured are lower and reference samples rarer. However, by its very principle, activation analysis offers the analyst the possibility of avoiding most of them [91] . It is also one of the few methods that regularly reaches its calculated detection limits for routine analyses.

Analysis by reactor neutron irradiation, without chemical separation of the radioisotopes produced (INAA), is to be preferred whenever it provides sufficient sensitivity. This method is largely multi-elemental, enabling the determination...