A gas flow proportional detection system for the determination of boron in aerosol samples and other sample types

The intent of this work was to develop a detector which would exhibit high detection efficiency for the 10B(n,α)7Li reaction products emitted when aerosol samples on high efficiency filters were irradiated in reasonably intense thermal neutron fields so that acceptable results could be obtained through the nondstructive technique in reasonable analysis times. Testing and evaluation demonstrated that the lucite-bodied internal gas proportional detector can be used effectively to analyze particulate aerosols for boron-10 content in short analysis times, given a reasonably high thermal neutron fluence rate. A maximum sensitivity of 1.73 x 10-6 cpm per (n cm-2 s-1) per nanogram of natural boron was determined for the detector system described. (author) 14 refs.; 8 figs.; 4 tabs