Jordan Hamilton
Research Mentor(s): Kimberlee Kearfott
Mentor Department: NERS/BME
Authors: Jordan Hamilton, Cate Costew, Jordan Noey, Kimberlee Kearfott
Session: Session 4 (1:00pm – 1:50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 18
Abstract
This research examines a novel gamma-ray spectroscopic system, comprised of eight large volume NaI(Tl) detectors housed in lead shielding, which was designed to maximize sensitivity to best measure contaminants in the environment. To optimize the settings for the detection system for quantifying the activity of environmental contaminants, initial parameters had to be established. This process involved setting a threshold for electronic noise, determining an ideal energy window, and aligning individual spectra to obtain a sum spectrum. Following these steps, an energy calibration was performed using various gamma ray energies to cover a 3 MeV range. Calibration using a collection of different sizes and shapes of bottles containing different radionuclides was conducted to establish a relationship between detection efficiency and the volume, density, and energy of the sources and thus any environmental samples placed inside similar bottles. Subsequent to this, environmental samples were collected and measured, with activities quantified for each identified radionuclide. The findings show the impact these modifications have upon the detection efficiency and produced data that can be used to create a model to calculate the experimental efficiency as a function of these factors. Future work will focus on utilizing the results from this calibration to quantify radionuclides found in the environment, with a particular emphasis on soil and water samples.
