SAMPLING OF AIRBORNE RADIOACTIVE PARTICLES BY ELECTROSTATIC PRECIPITATION
Abstract
A report of an experimental study conducted to design, build, and test an electrostatic precipitator to determine the feasibility of fallout sampling by electrostatic precipitation is presented. Electrostatic precipitation of airborne particulates provides a capability of qualitatively defining the nuclides present as well as quantitatively defining the gross radiative activity. The conclusions are; electrostatic precipitation will provide a superior sample collection rate that might be increased even further by continued design studies, removing collected particulates in a fluid bath would result in a selective solubility fractionaion that would prevent an accurate concentration by filtration but would permit concentration by evaporation of the fluid, and electrostatic collection on a thin compactible, conducting plastic film would provide an optimum collection technique since the film could be advanced through the collector at periodic intervals to allow a continuous sampling capability and all of the sample could be contained in a good thin-disc sample geometry. The samples collected during this study provided readily analyzable gamma scintillation spectra and an analysis of this spectra is presented.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1962
- Accession Number
- AD0284014
Entities
People
- John W. Baker
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology