Monte Carlo optimum management of 241Am/Be disused sealed radioactive sources.

The optimum encapsulation of 241Am/Be disused sealed radioactive sources (DSRS) based on PHITS Monte Carlo simulations for their long-term storage in Cameroon was performed. The country capacity for the management of disused neutron sources was also evaluated and showed that a Am1 P60 capsule is sufficient for the total available inventoried 241Am/Be DSRSs. The effective dose rate was computed in the enclosures of the DSRS container, which will be temporarily stored in the centralized radioactive waste facility. The obtained results were in agreement with the ALARA principle for the exposure rate optimization and the obtained exposure dose rates were found to be 1.830 µSv/h (horizontal calculation) and 0.137 µSv/h (vertical computation) which values are lower than the 2.5 µSv/h acceptable limit for the public area. The dose profile for 241Am/Be source obtained, the neutron flux, and gamma generated from neutron absorption showed agreement with the research hypothesis. The Monte Carlo assessment achieved in the present research will be useful for dismantling and preparing the waste package for long-term storage.

Recovering and restitution of unknown, unidentified, and unlabeled samples in laboratories using EDXRF analysis.

This Study presents a method to recover and label unknown samples in a nuclear laboratory using Energy Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometry based on spectra differentiation and analysis. This method was found to be a new powerful tool that can be used in different laboratories where a certain number of samples cannot be identified because they have never been identified, their labeling and identification cannot be assessed because of degradation, and/or any other causes. The method was found to be simple, timely appropriate, not expensive, and powerful in identifying and recover the information needed for a sample. The EDXRF spectrometry method for recovering unknown samples in laboratories was based on the following three main points:•EDXRF method allows the elemental characterization of any sample without clear identification in a laboratory;•The displaying of several samples' spectra on the same graph allows direct comparison and identification when the sample's data overlap one of the stored data; and•The identification of the unknown sample based on the EDXRF results: The faster method being the overlapping comparison while the elemental characterization-based identification needs high skilled expertise in X-ray fluorescence analysis.