Efficiency Calculation of Plastic Scintillator for in situ Beta Measurement System

Mai Nguyen Trong Nhan*, Ukjae Lee, Hee Reyoung Kim

Department of Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Banyeon-ri,
Eonyang-eup, Ulju-gun, Ulsan 44919, Korea.
*
Corresponding Author: [email protected]

1. Introduction modeled as in equilibrium state with a ratio of 1:1,

respectively.
Characterization of radioactive contamination at MCNP6 is a Monte Carlo radiation-transport code
decommissioned sites has historically been carried out designed to track many particle types over broad ranges
using sampling and separate pretreatment procedure in of energies [2]. As MCNP did not take into account the
conjunction with measurement in laboratories. This scintillation process. The efficiency of the plate was
method is especially employed for analysis of alpha or determined instead by the energy deposition of beta
beta emitting radionuclides. However, such analysis is particles using F8 (e,p) tally. Any non-zero energy
costly, time consuming and results in long delay deposition of beta particles within the scintillator would
between sampling and obtaining results [1]. be regarded as a count. Due to this limitation, the
To overcome this situation, an in-situ system, where spectra of energy deposition within the plastic
the detection part comes into direct contact with the scintillator were also calculated for further discussion
matter, is required for the measurement of beta nuclides relating to efficiency.
with the short range at D&D site. Plastic scintillator is
used as it is non-hygroscopic and can be fabricated into
various shapes with large sensitive area.
Plastic scintillator is in charge of converting radiation
energy to photons, which overall can affect the
efficiency of monitoring system. Predicting the
efficiency of plastic scintillator before building the
system is of importance issue.
Thus, in this study, the efficiency of polystyrene-
based plastic scintillator for in-situ beta measurement
system was determined, using MNCP6 simulation and Figure 2. Model for MCNP6 calculation.
experiment with four pure beta sources in the water
Table 1. Material component used for simulation.
aqueous form.
Density
Component Composition
2. Material and Method (g/cm3) [4]

The concept of in-situ measurement system was (1) (2) (3)

illustrated in figure 1.
Plastic
Polystyrene 1.05
scintillator

Approximate by
Source 1.00
water

Vial Polyethylene 0.93

Figure 1. Concept of on-situ beta monitoring with plastic 2.2. Experiment:

scintillator.
After considering simulation results, a suitable
2.1. MCNP simulation: thickness of scintillator plate was chosen and an
experiment was carried out. The dimension of vial was
The plastic scintillator was modelled as a commercial similar to simulation one. Radioactive samples were
plastic scintillation plate manufactured by Saint Gobain prepared by following procedures:
with different thickness, namely 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and 5  Extract each radionuclide source as 500 𝜇𝑙.
mm [3]. 3H. 14C, 32P, 90Sr/90Y were beta emitting  Check the mass of extracted source.
radionuclides used in the simulation. 90Sr/90Y was

1
  Fill the sample case with radioactive source deposition in scintillator was different in both scenarios
(500 𝜇𝑙) and distilled water (5,000 𝜇𝑙) shown in figure 4 but F8 tally results would be similar
 Check the mass of sample case filled with to each other, leading to same efficiency.
source and water.
 Calculate the radioactivity concentration.
Encapsulate the sample case with nylon film
wrapping.
 Each sample was measured during a period of
600 s.

Table 2. Pure beta ray emitting nuclide sources

Nuclide Radioactivity Mass of solution Figure 4. Possible scenarios for electron traversing plastic
concentration (g) layer.
(Bq/g)
(1) (2) (3) Discussion as to the energy deposition in plastic
3
H 5,952,891.44 5.85 scintillator was presented in the next section
14
C 66.88 6.03
32
P 45.00 6.16 3.2. Energy deposition in plastic scintillator
90
Sr/90Y 130.54 5.99
Energy deposition spectra of 14C and 3H were similar
Source information after preparation was presented in for plastic scintillators with different thickness. Most of
table 2. low energy electrons deposited all of its energy in a
plastic scintillator of 0.5 mm thick (figure 5).
3. Results and Discussion For high energy beta particles, there was possibility
that these particles just deposited a small amount of
In this section, the efficiencies of plastic scintillator energy and escaped the plastic layer as shown in figure
were presented. The effect of plastic’s thickness on 4b). Due to this effect, spectra of energy deposition for
32
energy deposition of beta particles was also considered. P and 90Sr/90Y were different with different thickness
Afterwards, experiment results of 1 mm plastic of plastic scintillator as illustrated in figure 6
scintillator were compared with those from simulation.

3.1. Efficiency of plastic scintillator from simulation

Low energy beta emitters have short range and those

generated at deeper location would be stopped within
the source medium and unable to reach the scintillator.
Thus, efficiencies were extremely low for 14C and 3H
sources. High energy beta emitters (32P and 90Sr/90Y)
yielded higher efficiency.

6
5 C-14
Efficiency (%)

4
H-3
3
2 P-32
1
Sr-90/Y-90
0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Thickness of plastic Scintillator (mm)
Figure 3. Efficiency of plastic scintillator with different
thicknesses.

It may be concluded that for a specific beta emitting

radionuclide, the thickness of plastic scintillator had
insignificant effect on counting efficiency. However, F8
tally was used to count non-zero energy deposition
events regardless of the magnitude of the energy Figure 5. Energy deposition spectra for 14C and 3H in plastic
deposition. For example, the amount of energy scintillator with different thickness.

2
 Figure 7. Detected spectra of 1mm plastic scintillator for pure
beta ray emitting nuclide sources.

The spectrum of 32P and 90Sr/90Y could be checked

but spectrum of 3H and 14C were not detected as these
spectrums were similar to the spectrum of blank sample.
The efficiency was calculated only for 32P and 90Sr/90Y
source. The net count is defined as the difference
between total count of each sample and blank sample.

Table 3. Experiment results compared to simulation

Source Net Experiment Simulation Relative
count efficiency efficiency difference
(%) (%) (%)
(1) (2) (4) (5) (6)
32
P 9.22E+03 5.55E+00 5.65E+00 1.8
Figure 6. Energy deposition spectra for 32P and 90Sr/90Y in 90 90
Sr/ Y 2.16E+04 4.60E+00 4.62E+00 0.4
plastic scintillator with different thicknesses.

32
P and 90Y are high energy beta emitters, with the Experiment results were slightly lower compared to
maximum energy being 1.709 MeV and 2.28 MeV, simulation results, with the relative difference being
respectively. These high energy betas traverse a thin 1.8% and 0.4% for 32P and 90Sr/90Y source, respectively.
plastic layer and just deposited a small amount of The difference was accounted by:
energy, mostly located in low energy region of 20 keV -In real measurement, the production of photon is
(the peak of 0.5 mm line shown in Figure 6). In real nonlinear for high LET particles (low energy beta
measurement, electrical pulse generated from such low particles), resulting in lower number of generated
energy deposition events are registered at low channels photons, in other words, lower efficiency. MCNP was
of the MCA, coinciding with pulses from noise and unable to simulate this energy conversion process.
background. -The presence of a thin air layer and the nylon film
It was predicted that efficiency of 0.5 mm thick wrapping between radiation source and plastic
plastic layer would have some deviation coming from scintillator was excluded in simulation process.
background and noise. The high background
disturbance would degrade the detection accuracy of a 4. Conclusion
direct measurement device.
Thick plastic scintillator, on the other hand, would The efficiency of plastic scintillator was calculated
absorb gamma rays which is undesirable during gross based on MCNP simulation and experiment. The main
beta measurement. Hence, 1 mm of plastic scintillator results were stated as follows:
was chosen to check the efficiency in real experiment. -Good agreement was shown between simulation and
experiment, giving the relative error of 1.8% for 32P
3.3 Experiment results of 1mm plastic scintillator: source and 0.4% for 90Sr/90Y source.
-1 mm of plastic scintillator could be used in in-situ
Detected spectra of 1mm plastic scintillator for pure system to measure high energy beta emitting
beta ray emitting nuclide sources were shown in the radionuclides but was not suitable for analysis of 14C
following figure: and 3H with low energy.
- It could be deduced from spectra of energy
deposition that very thin plastic layer (0.5 mm) would

3
pose a problem in real measurement of high energy beta
emitting radionuclides.

REFERENCE

[1] In-situ radiation detection demonstration, Stephen W.

Duce, Amir H. Mohagheighi, Mark L. Miller, Robert R. Reese
and David R. Miller. WM’00 Conference, February 27 –
March 2, 2000, Tucson, AZ.
[2] T. Goorley, et al., "Initial MCNP6 Release Overview",
Nuclear Technology, 180, pp298-315
[3]https://www.saint-
gobain.co.jp/sites/default/files/download/pdf/Crystal_Organic
_Scintillation_Materials_Saint-Gobain.pdf
[4] Compendium of Material Composition Data for Radiation
Transport Modeling R.G. Williams III, C.J. Gesh R.T. Pagh,
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.