Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Measurement of the applicability of various experimental materials in a medically relevant reactor neutron source Part One: Material characteristics acting as a carrier for boron compounds during neutron irradiation

  • Received : 2022.08.11
  • Accepted : 2023.04.25
  • Published : 2023.08.25
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Abstract

A 100 kW thermal power pool-type light water reactor and Pu(Be) as a fast neutron source were used to determine the appropriate carrier for irradiating boron-containing samples with neutron beams. The tested materials (carriers) were subjected to neutron beams in the reactor's tangential channel. The geometrical arrangement of experimental facilities relative to the neutron beam trajectory, as well as the effect of sample thickness on the count rate, were investigated. The majority of the detectable charged particles emitted by the neutron beam's interaction with tested materials and the detector's detecting layer are protons (recoiled hydrogen) and particles generated in nuclear reactions (protons and alpha particles), respectively. Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter (SRIM) software was used to do theoretical calculations for the range of expected released particles in various materials, including human tissue. The results of measurement and calculation are in good agreement. According to experiments and theoretical calculations, the number of protons emitted by tissue-like materials may commit a dose comparable to that of boron capture reactions. Furthermore, the range of protons is significantly larger than that of alpha particles, which most probably changes dose distribution in healthy cells surrounding the tumor, which is undesirable in the BNCT approach.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The first author would like to express his deepest appreciation to the NTI-BME training reactor staff for their outstanding assistance. His appreciation also goes to Dr. L. Duffek, SOTE Department of Radiology, Semmelweis Clinic, for his assistance. Prof. Czifrus Szabolcs, director of the Institute of Nuclear Techniques at Budapest University of Technology and Economics (NTI-BME), is also appreciated for his insightful comments. My heartfelt gratitude goes to the Ministry of Higher Education in the Great Libyan Arab Jamahiriya for funding this study at the NTI-BME reactor in Hungary.

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