PGNAA system preliminary design and measurement of In-Hospital Neutron Irradiator for boron concentration measurement

A prompt gamma neutron activation analysis (PGNAA) system has been recently developed at the 30-kW research reactor In-Hospital Neutron Irradiator (IHNI) in Beijing. Neutrons from the specially designed thermal neutron beam were used. The thermal flux of this beam is 3.08×10⁶ cm^-2 s^-1 at a full reactor power of 30 kW. The PGNAA system consists of an n-type high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector of 40% efficiency, a digital spectrometer, and a shielding part. For both the detector shielding part and the neutron beam shielding part, the inner layer is composed of ⁶Li₂CO₃ powder and the outer layer lead. The boron-10 sensitivity of the PGNAA system is approximately 2.5 cps/ppm. Two calibration curves were produced for the 1-10 ppm and 10-50 ppm samples. The measurement results of the control samples were in accordance with the inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) results.