129914

Characterization of Pu-bearing materials by non-destructive spectrometric approach: relevance for nuclear forensics

Article

Last updated: 03 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

-

Abstract

One of the main components that should be in place to control nuclear materials and their applications is a robust measurement system. The function of this system is not only to verify the correctness of the information regarding nuclear materials but it must be capable to characterize the unknown materials as well. The material's chemical and physical attributes concluded from the characterization process are needed to determine the intended use and origin of such materials. Thus, the characterization of nuclear materials is a key issue and equally important in nuclear safeguards (for inventory verification) and in nuclear security (for forensics attribution). Herein, an absolute spectrometric non-destructive analysis (NDA) method was used to characterize some plutonium-bearing materials. The gamma-ray spectra from fifteen samples were obtained using a high purity germanium detector. A portable HPGe-based radionuclide (Falcon 5000) with the In-Situ Object Counting System (ISOCS) which is based on a pre-efficiency calibrated high-resolution gamma-spectrometer in combination with analysis software was applied. The isotopic composition of the assayed samples was estimated from the direct measurement of the activities of Pu isotopes as well as Am, Pa, and U isotopes. The obtained results have shown that the proposed spectrometric method can be successfully used to characterize Pu-bearing samples for nuclear forensic purposes.  

DOI

10.21608/jsrs.2020.129914

Keywords

Plutonium, Non-destructive analysis, Nuclear forensics, gamma spectrometry

Authors

First Name

Marwa

Last Name

Tawfeek

MiddleName

Mostafa

Affiliation

Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA), Cairo, Egypt.

Email

firestorm18@yahoo.com

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

W.

Last Name

El-Gammal

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA), Cairo, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

H.M.

Last Name

Abu-Zied

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education, Ain Shams university, Cairo, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

A.

Last Name

Nada

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education, Ain Shams university, Cairo, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Z.F.K.

Last Name

Hassan

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority (ENRRA), Cairo, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

F.

Last Name

Ragab

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education, Ain Shams university, Cairo, Egypt.

Email

-

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

37

Article Issue

Part 1 (Basic Sciences)

Related Issue

10877

Issue Date

2020-02-01

Receive Date

2020-12-15

Publish Date

2020-02-01

Page Start

61

Page End

72

Print ISSN

2356-8364

Online ISSN

2356-8372

Link

https://jsrs.journals.ekb.eg/article_129914.html

Detail API

https://jsrs.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=129914

Order

5

Type

Original Article

Type Code

656

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Journal of Scientific Research in Science

Publication Link

https://jsrs.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Characterization of Pu-bearing materials by non-destructive spectrometric approach: relevance for nuclear forensics

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023