Phase II: Field Detector Development For Undeclared/Declared Nuclear Testing For Treaty Verfiation Monitoring

Technical Report · Fri Oct 02 04:00:00 EDT 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1223199· OSTI ID:1223199

Kriz, M. ^[1]; Hunter, D. ^[1]; Riley, T. ^[1]

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1. Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)

Radioactive xenon isotopes are a critical part of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) for the detection or confirmation of nuclear weapons tests as well as on-site treaty verification monitoring. On-site monitoring is not currently conducted because there are no commercially available small/robust field detector devices to measure the radioactive xenon isotopes. Xenon is an ideal signature to detect clandestine nuclear events since they are difficult to contain and can diffuse and migrate through soils due to their inert nature. There are four key radioxenon isotopes used in monitoring: ¹³⁵Xe (9 hour half-life), ^133mXe (2 day half-life), ¹³³Xe (5 day half-life) and ^131mXe (12 day half-life) that decay through beta emission and gamma emission. Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is a leader in the field of gas collections and has developed highly selective molecular sieves that allow for the collection of xenon gas directly from air. Phase I assessed the development of a small, robust beta-gamma coincidence counting system, that combines collection and in situ detection methodologies. Phase II of the project began development of the custom electronics enabling 2D beta-gamma coincidence analysis in a field portable system. This will be a significant advancement for field detection/quantification of short-lived xenon isotopes that would not survive transport time for laboratory analysis.

• Research Organization: Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-08SR22470
• OSTI ID: 1223199
• Report Number(s): SRNL--L2200-2015-00095
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English