Alternative title | Production of a carrier-free standard 56Mn source for the NRC manganese salt bath |
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DOI | Resolve DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108896 |
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Author | Search for: Galea, R.1; Search for: Moore, K.1 |
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Affiliation | - National Research Council of Canada. Measurement Science and Standards
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Format | Text, Article |
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Conference | International Conference on Radionuclide Metrology, May 27-31, 2019, Salamanca, Spain |
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Physical description | 13 p. |
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Subject | Mn salt bath; Neutron emission rate; ⁵⁶Mn; Szilard-Chalmers |
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Abstract | The National Research Council (NRC) of Canada's primary method for emission rate for radionuclide neutron sources utilizes a manganese salt bath which was last calibrated in the 1960s. At that time, an NRC RaBe neutron source was used to irradiate a solution of calcium permanganate to take advantage of the Szilard-Chalmers effect in producing the bulk ⁵⁶Mn material for standardization and calibration of the bath. When attempting to repeat this exercise, a small amount (∼100 kBq) was produced. This amount was sufficient for the standardization process but did not yield enough material to calibrate the bath to a sufficient level of precision.
Improvements upon the previous separation scheme adopted at NRC for the separation of the ⁵⁶Mn from the bulk irradiated material included the rinsing of the ⁵⁶Mn dioxide precipitate using a mixture of sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide. While these improvements made in the separation chemistry improved the yield of ⁵⁶Mn extraction from 60% to above 95% the maximum amount of activity was still quite low. Hence in March of 2018, the SLOWPOKE-2 Facility at the Royal Military College in Kingston, ON, was used to irradiate three vials of KMnO4 in solution. An estimated 2 GBq was produced and sent to NRC, from which the extraction procedure recovered essentially all of the available ⁵⁶Mn.
The ⁵⁶Mn was standardized using the πβ−γ anti-coincidence counting system and confirmed using the CIEMAT/NIST primary method. The resulting bulk material was certified with an uncertainty of 0.8% (k = 2). Minor quantities of ⁶⁵Zn,⁶⁹mZn and 42K were unexpectedly observed but were in minute quantities so as not to affect the results of the standardization or calibration. The standardized ⁵⁶Mn artifact was used to calibrate the Secondary Standard Ionizing Radiation Chamber System (SSIRCS) for a more rapid deployment of the calibrant in the future. |
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Publication date | 2019-09-16 |
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Publisher | Elsevier |
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In | |
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Note | yes |
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Language | English |
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Peer reviewed | Yes |
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Export citation | Export as RIS |
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Report a correction | Report a correction (opens in a new tab) |
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Record identifier | 495c2f76-464b-4fa2-96f7-4805948c0541 |
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Record created | 2019-09-26 |
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Record modified | 2021-08-23 |
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