RESUMO
The current study explores the effectiveness of an iron slag nanopowder (ISNP), which prepared from local iron steel industry, against gamma/neutron shielding. The structural and physical characteristics were experimentally determined. The crystal structure, morphology and elemental composition of the ISNP were studied using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). On the other hand, a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study on the γ-ray shielding effectiveness of the ISNP was performed. In which, the experimental results have been validated by comparison with theoretical data which obtained by using the WinXcom program. This paper uses the well-known mathematical relationships to derive many shielding and dosimetry parameters such as effective atomic number and, effective electron density, for photon interaction and photon energy absorption as well as the γ-ray kerma coefficient from the mass attenuation coefficient. The exposure and energy absorption buildup factors have been also calculated. Furthermore, the shielding effectiveness against thermal and fast neutrons has been tested in terms of total macroscopic cross-sections. The results have revealed that the produced ISNP, with crystallite size of 24.5 nm, exhibits good shielding characteristics. Finally, based on this preliminary study, we can have concluded that the iron slag nanoparticles can be suitably used as an effective and safe (lead - free) component for radiation shielding.
RESUMO
Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) using rabbit irradiation system at ETRR-2 reactor was utilized to analyze some elements namely Na, Mg, Al, Cl, V, Mn, In, and Br in four different crude petroleum samples from different oil fields in the Suez-Gulf region of Egypt. The INAA was performed by four different standardization methods. Namely absolute, single comparator based on effective cross section concept, single comparator based on k(0,Au) factors, and that based on k(0,ic) factors defined versus any suitable internal comparator method. A FORTRAN computer program was written to calculate the extracted concentrations by these methods. A reasonable agreement between the obtained results was noticed.
