Design of a cw, low energy, high power superconducting linac for environmental applications

TL;DR

This paper presents a compact superconducting linac design capable of delivering high-power continuous wave electron beams at 1 MeV for environmental treatment applications, emphasizing cost-effectiveness and technical feasibility.

Contribution

It introduces a novel superconducting accelerator design with specific components for high-power cw operation at 1 MeV, suitable for industrial environmental applications.

Findings

Design achieves 1 A current at 1 MeV with superconducting technology.

Engineering analysis indicates cost competitiveness with existing treatment methods.

The proposed system is suitable for large-scale environmental gas and wastewater treatment.

Abstract

The treatment of flue gases from power plants and municipal or industrial wastewater using electron beam irradiation technology has been successfully demonstrated in small-scale pilot plants. The beam energy requirement is rather modest, on the order of a few MeV, however the adoption of the technology at an industrial scale requires the availability of high beam power, of the order of 1 MW, in a cost effective way. In this article we present the design of a compact superconducting accelerator capable of delivering a cw electron beam with a current of 1 A and an energy of 1 MeV. The main components are an rf-gridded thermionic gun and a conduction cooled beta= 0.5 elliptical Nb3Sn cavity with dual coaxial power couplers. An engineering and cost analysis shows that the proposed design would result in a processing cost competitive with alternative treatment methods.