INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ROORKEE

Applications of Nuclear Physics

How atomic nucleus has affected our lives and technological society?
• Food Sterilization
• Medical Applications and Radiotracers
• Smoke detectors
• Radiocarbon Dating
• Energy Production
• Weapons

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Applications

Industrial uses
• Medicine
• Tracing (George de Hevesy, an Hungarian • Chemistry
radiochemist won Nobel prize in 1943 for his
key role in the development of radioactive • Engineering
tracers to study chemical processes such as in
the metabolism of animals) • Agriculture
• Tracer chosen is an isotope of the main
element being studied • Metallurgy
• Behavior of the tracer mimics that of • Geology
ordinary stable nuclide to which it is virtually
chemically identical • Zoology
• Criminology
Main advantage:
Minimal disruption to the system

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Medical Applications of Radioactivity

Radioactive nuclides can be

introduced into laboratory
reactions or organisms and
traced for diagnostic purposes.

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Iodine kinetics of thyroid

For the first time, it became possible to measure metabolic function directly in a living
person.

The first ones used clinically for diagnostic purposes were 128I, 130I, 131I and 132I .

They were produced either at cyclotrons (130Te + D) or in nuclear reactors (130Te + n)

Today the only isotope used for radiation therapy is 131I

One of the remaining challenges is tabout a method for individual absorbed dose
calculations. Careful dose estimates will prevent unnecessary radiation exposure and
constitute a base for a future optimised radioiodine therapy.

For historical evolution and for more details:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02841860600635888

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Indigenous Teletherapy Machine

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 Gamma Knife

Multiple targeting (up to 201 60Co sources; 1 TBq each; circular array) to
achieve better dose delivery and low damage to surrounding tissues.

•Brain tumors
•Acoustic neuroma
•Arteriovenous
malformation (AVM)
•Trigeminal neuralgia

High accuracy, low risk, low complications, low morbidity

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Farm animals ---absorption of important nutritional elements

Many elements are required by farm animals in trace amounts

Important to discover how effectively they are taken up in certain compounds

Measure rate of transfer, for example, to milk in cows and from a hen to the
contents of its egg

Enabled livestock feeders to improve efficiency by optimizing the calcium-to-

phosphorus ratio in the diet

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At the University of Tennessee's Oak Ridge
experiment station, hens fed with mildly radioactive
mash are laying radioactive eggs.

This tracer technique has helped its poultry scientists

to follow the intimate workings of the hen's egg-
making machinery.

By skilled use of Geiger counters, they can follow the

"hot" feed as it circulates inside the hen. They can
measure it accurately as it forms into an egg.

A new-laid egg, say the scientists, contains material

derived from feed that the hen ate as long as 40 days
before.

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Agriculture
Protection of trees from leaf-eating insect larvae

• Use pesticides labelled with radioactive 35S

• Measure rate of accumulation of pesticide in the leaves by detecting the buildup of

activity

• No interference with the plant

• Enabled many different pesticides and methods for applying them to be compared
cheaply and efficiently.
Migration of rate of labelled fertilizer into soil

• Measure how quickly the activity spreads from the point of application

• Simplified the way fertilizers were spread on the land and with considerable saving in
the cost

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 Smoke Detectors
• Americium-241 emits alpha particles and ionizes air in a space in the
detector
• Ions allow a current to flow
• Smoke absorbs alpha particles, interferes with ion formation and electric
current. An alarm sounds

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 Dating by Radioactivity
• Originated in 1940s by Willard Libby
– Based on the radioactivity of carbon-14
• Used to date wood and artifacts up to about 50,000 years old

Radiocarbon dating activity

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 Food Sterilization
• Gamma irradiation of foods often from
60Co source

• Spices, herbs and dehydrated

vegetables. Also pork and poultry
• Approval from concerned authorities

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Electron Beam Machine

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Irradiated Gems – Value addition

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Radiation & Radioisotopes in Food & Agriculture

• Radiation Processing
– Sprout inhibition - potatoes, onions
– Disinfestation - grains
– Delayed ripening - bananas etc.
– Extension of shelf life - strawberries
– Microbial decontamination – spices, meat
– Hygeinization – meat, fish
– Sterilisation – meat, fish, chapatis etc.

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FRENCH BEANS

UNTREATED TREATED 1 kGy TREATED 2 kGy

Shelf-life extension of whole ready –to – cook French

beans by radiation processing

[Storage temperature 100 C] [Storage duration 17 Days ]

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POMEGRANATE ARILS

UNTREATED TREATED 2 kGy

Shelf-life extension of cut ready –to – eat

pomegranate arils by radiation processing
[Storage temperature 100 C] [Storage duration 25 Days ]

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 WHITE PUMPKINS (ASH GOURD)

CONTROL IRRADIATED (2 kGy)

Shelf-life extension of cut ready –to – cook ash
gourd by radiation processing
STORAGE DURATION : 8 DAYS STORAGE TEMPERATURE : 100 C

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RADIOGRAPHY TESTING OF AIRCRAFT ENGINE

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Radiotracer for studying
silt movement, dredging
etc. in coasts/harbours

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Detection of underground pipeline leakage

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 Application in Food and Agriculture

Insect Pest Control

by Sterile Insect Techniques

Animal Production & Health Plant Breeding & Genetics

by Mutation Techniques
by RIA, ELISA, PCR, etc. Nuclear
Techniques

Soil & Water Management Food & Environmental

& Crop Nutrition Protection
by Isotopic and Nuclear Techniques by Food Irradiation and Radio-
analytical Techniques

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Crop improvement by mutation techniques

negative mutation

Mutant cultivars

- Higher yielding
- Disease-resistance
- Well-adapted
- Better nutrition

no mutation

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Mutation techniques

- Improving crop cultivars

- Enhancing biodiversity

- Increasing farmer’s income

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 2. Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition
Management

Soil
Isotopic and nuclear Water
techniques

Crop Nutrition

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Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management

Technical basis
• Both stable and radioactive isotopes can be used as tracers in soil and
water management & crop nutrition.
• Isotopes are atoms with:
– the same chemical properties, but different atomic weight (mass
number).
– the same number of protons but different neutrons.
– different mass number (atomic weight).
• Isotopes can be either stable or radioactive
– stable isotopes: different masses (18O and 16O).
– radioactive isotopes: radioactive decay (32P).

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Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management

14N 32P

31P
31P 13CO
2

12CO
2
14N
15N

32P 31P
16O

13CO
2
18O
12CO
2

18O 16O

13C

12C

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 Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management

• Enhance the efficient and sustainable use of soil-water-nutrient

resources.
• Quantify Biological Nitrogen Fixation.
• Minimize effects of soil erosion and degradation.
• Enhance water use efficiency by crops.
• Select drought and salt-tolerant crops.
• Evaluate effects of crop residue incorporation on soil stabilization and
fertility enhancement.
• Track and quantify off-site water (nutrients) losses beyond the plant
rooting zone.

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Soil-Water-Crop Nutrition Management

Using isotopic and nuclear techniques, Agency supported

studies show that:
➢ Soil conservation measures improved land productivity
and reduced soil erosion rates by 55-90% in Chile, China,
Morocco, Romania and Vietnam.
➢ Improved yield and revenue by 25-50% while reduced
water use by the same extent in Chile, Jordan, Syria and
Uzbekistan.
➢ 10-15 % increase in P utilization efficiency in Mexico and
Burkina Faso.
➢ 30% increase in BNF through improved soil and crop
management practices and genotype selection in Asia
and Africa.

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 Food and Environmental Protection

Technical basis
• Food irradiation is the treatment of food by ionizing radiation
• Radiation at appropriate doses can kill harmful pests, bacteria, or
parasites, and extend shelf-life of foods.
• Isotopic techniques are employed to monitor foods for contamination
with agrochemicals
– optimizing sample preparation by radioisotopes
– detecting contaminant by electron capture detector

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 Several energy sources can be used to
irradiate food

• Gamma Rays
• Electron Beams
• X-rays

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Application of Food Irradiation

• More than 60 countries permit the application of

irradiation in over 50 different foods
• An estimated 500,000 tons of food are irradiated
annually
• About 180 Cobalt-60 irradiation facilities and a dozen
electron beam (EB) machines are used to treat foods
worldwide
• More and more countries accept the use of
irradiation as a phytosanitary measure

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Proton Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE)
……………………….In 1970 by Sven Johansson, Lund University, Sweden

• Determines elemental make-up a material

•Modern materials analysis technique that uses a moderately energetic particle

beam to eject electrons from a target material.

•Characteristic x-rays are produced from each of the elements in the target
material.

•PIXE is a non-destructive technique and the analyses are sensitive for elements in
the range of Na to U. (To complete the periodic table we use other complementary
analysis techniques such as PESA, PIGE, and RBS.)

•PIXE is used in fields from biology, medicine, forensics, art conservation,

archeometry, materials analysis and environmental pollution.

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Proton Induced X-Ray Emission (PIXE)

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Gold jewelry artifacts,
• pottery,
• ancient record books,
• painting material
• writing material in Medieval &
Renaissance manuscripts,
• Dinosaur bone and eggshell fossil,
• Human and Neanderthal man bone
• obsidian tools,
• human bones,
• rock varnish.

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All in one….

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 In Essence ….
• Radionuclides and Radiation play important roles in many fields that affect
human welfare.

• The impact of nuclear medicine in Medical field is very gratifying

• In Agriculture and food industry radiation and radioisotope have a significant

role to play

• In industries too the use of radiations is steadily increasing for a variety of

purposes

• The futuristic predictions show an upward trend towards use of

radiations/radionuclides

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Nuclear Fission

Nuclear reactor:
Device in which a fission chain reaction occurs in a controlled manner

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 Nuclear Fission
Critical energy (Ec)
Energy required to deform the nucleus to a point where the system begin to split into two

Energy of excited nucleus = Kinetic energy of

neutron + Neutron separation energy

Fission with neutrons of zero KE

Fissile Nuclei: 235U, 233U and 239Pu

Do not fission unless stuck by energetic neutron

Fissionable but non-fissile: 238U and 232Th

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 Mean energy is 2 MeV

What is the average number of neutrons are emitted in fission?

Prompt neutron spectrum

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  Number of neutrons released in fission per neutron absorbed by a fissile nucleus

 cannot be equal to 1 and less than 1. Why?

 Is always greater than 1 ☺
Either non-fission absorption or escape from

Why can’t fissionable but not fissile cannot be used in reactor as fuel?
The effective value  = actual value of   fraction of neutrons absorbed in the reactor with
energies above fission threshold.
This number is always less than 1.

0.72% of 235U in 238U Improvement after enrichment

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 Conversion
Limited resources of 235U……about a century only What is the alternate?

Happens as a matter of course during the normal operation of reactors

Fertile isotopes: Not fissile, but from which fissile isotope can be produced → 232Th and 238U

Chemical separation of fissile from fertile

Conversion ratio C: Average number of fissile atoms produced per fissile fuel atom consumed

C > 1 Breeder reactors What should be value of  ?

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Nuclear components in a reactor

W: Rate of electrical energy output in MWe

QR: Rate of thermal energy output from reactor

Core: Fuel + moderator + coolant Withdrawal of control rods increases the value of k
& insertion decreases the value of k
No moderator in fast breeder reactor

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Types of reactors

Light water reactors

Pressurized water reactor

Boiling water reactors

Gas cooled reactors

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