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Non-destructive method for determining the 63Ni activity in reactor steels and alloys

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Abstract

A new non-destructive method has been proposed to determine the radioactivity of long-lived nickel radioisotopes produced in nuclear reactor metallic structural materials. We offer to use an electron accelerator and photonuclear reactions to determine the activity of 63Ni in spent reactor steel and alloys by the 60Co activity. The relative activity measurements allow to ignore factors such as material heterogeneity, differences in sample density and chemical composition. Using a semiconductor spectrometer with an HPGe detector, the developed method has an uncertainty of 5–10% and a sensitivity of 0.5 Bq g–1. It makes it possible to simplify the identification and control of 63Ni in metallic structural materials of nuclear power units and various types of radioactive waste. The proposed method was tested on RBMK-1000 and WWER-1000 reactor samples.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Russian Science Foundation under grant 22-29-01013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1-2, 119991, Moscow, Russian Federation

    M. V. Zheltonozhskaya, D. A. Iyusyuk & A. P. Chernyaev

  2. Institute of Radiochemistry and Radioecology, University of Pannonia, Egyetem U. 10, 8200, Veszprem, Hungary

    T. Kovacs

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  1. M. V. Zheltonozhskaya
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  2. D. A. Iyusyuk
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  3. A. P. Chernyaev
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  4. T. Kovacs
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Correspondence to M. V. Zheltonozhskaya.

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Zheltonozhskaya, M.V., Iyusyuk, D.A., Chernyaev, A.P. et al. Non-destructive method for determining the 63Ni activity in reactor steels and alloys. J Radioanal Nucl Chem (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-08936-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-08936-y

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