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Performance of Compton suppression system (CSS) and applicability in food matrices

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Abstract

As a non-destructive and multi-element technique, with high-level metrological properties, instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) has an important role to determine chemical elements in food. However, its use may be limited when looking for mass fractions near the detection limits. The Compton scattering of higher energy gamma-rays raised the spectrum baseline thus impairing the determination of several elements. Therefore, the gamma-ray spectrometry with Compton suppression becomes an alternative for improving the performance of INAA, since it can reduce the uncertainty of measurements and the detection limits by increasing the proportion between photopeak area and baseline. Here the performance of a Compton suppression system set by Ortec, with 50% relative efficiency and 2.04 keV resolution (FWHM) for the 1,332 keV photopeak, was evaluated for food analysis. Samples of beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas, and rice were irradiated with neutrons and measured in the suppression system. Detection limits calculated from suppressed and unsuppressed spectra were compared. The suppression factor achieved by the system for 137Cs was 5.88 ± 0.11 (n = 20) in the plateau region (358 to 382 keV), which was stable along a 20 week period and similar to the data provided in literature for other systems. Amongst fifteen elements determined, the detection limits for Br, Co, La, Na, Sc, and Se were not improved by the use of Compton suppression. On the other hand, the variable improvement obtained for As, Ca, Cd, Cr, Fe, Hg, K, Rb, and Zn corroborated the idea that the performance of the Compton suppressor must be individually assessed for each type of sample.

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Acknowledgment

The authors are thankful to Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the financial support, and Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, Comissão Nacional de Energia Nuclear (IPEN/CNEN) for the irradiation of samples with neutrons.

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  1. Laboratório de Radioisótopos (LRi), Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA), Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Av. Centenário 303, Caixa Postal 96, Piracicaba, SP, 13400-970, Brazil

    Luís Gustavo Cofani dos Santos, Márcio Arruda Bacchi, Elisabete A. De Nadai Fernandes & Simone Silveira Nery da Silva Cofani dos Santos

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  1. Luís Gustavo Cofani dos Santos
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  2. Márcio Arruda Bacchi
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  3. Elisabete A. De Nadai Fernandes
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  4. Simone Silveira Nery da Silva Cofani dos Santos
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Correspondence to Luís Gustavo Cofani dos Santos.

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dos Santos, L.G.C., Bacchi, M.A., De Nadai Fernandes, E.A. et al. Performance of Compton suppression system (CSS) and applicability in food matrices. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 291, 179–185 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-011-1286-5

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