Production method of environmental tracer 132Cs by accelerator-based neutron

Abstract

Cesium-132 has proposed as an alternative tracer of 137Cs for environment study on radioactive cesium dynamics released by a nuclear power plant accident. In the present study, we conducted a production experiment of the 132Cs by means of accelerator-based neutron method to investigate production amount and radioactive purity. A 12-g Cs2CO3 sample was irradiated by the accelerator-based neutron via the C(d,n) reactions by 1.2 µA of 30-MeV deuterons. As a result, 102 kBq/g of 132Cs was obtained with higher than 98.5% radioactive purity. Following that, a feasibility study of cesium dynamics measurement in andosol soil was performed. We found distribution of absorption of cesium in andosol soil can be clearly measurable by the produced 132Cs tracer.