An Assessment of Elemental Compositions and Concentrations in a Marble Sample from Hatnub Area using Internal Mono Standard Neutron Activation Analysis

A marble sample was taken from Hatnub area near Asyot, where a high pollution is expected. The sample was specially treated and prepared for elemental analysis using the k0-based internal mono standard neutron activation analysis . The irradiation facility of the first Egyptian Training Research Reactor (ETRR-1) was used to irradiate the sample together with gold and zirconium monitor samples. The pneumatic irradiation rabbit system (PIRS) built in the vertical thermal column of the second Egyptian Training Research Reactor (ETRR-2) was used to irradiate another weight of the marble sample and a sample from a certificated reference material JB-1 for short time irradiation. A new method was developed to measure the thermal to epithermal neutron flux ratio and the deviation in the real epithermal neutron spectrum ( 1/E1±alpha ) from the ideal (1/E ). The elemental analysis was carried out by high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. The accuracy of the internal mono standard method has been evaluated by analyzing the JB-1 certified reference material