Research
Funded Research
New radiobioassay system to be used at WIPP
The College of Engineering’s Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center has received an award of $64,175 from Washington TRU Solutions for the assembly and use of an in vivo radiobioassay system.
Naturally occurring external radiation can be reduced using shielding such as the 2,100 feet of rock overlying the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) repository. The salt surrounding the WIPP repository contains few naturally-occurring radionuclides. This shielding plus use of a shielded in vivo radiobioassay chamber already located in the WIPP underground will be used to determine if occupational radionuclide uptakes can be quantified in the WIPP underground in vivo radiobioassay chamber better than can be detected in an in vivo radiobioassay system above ground.
Also, CEMRC will use of a new mathematical tool to differentiate naturally-occurring 40K from an occupational uptake of 40K. Typically during an in vivo radiobioassay the gamma spectral line from the 40K, which decays via electron capture and the emission of a neutrino, is superimposed on the internally scattered Compton continuum, making it hard to discover a gamma spectral line from internal contamination of a worker. The new mathematical tool will be tested as part of this underground experiment.
The results of this experiment may enable the U.S. Department of Energy to better delineate occupational exposure of workers from exposure to naturally occurring radionuclides.