Research of interaction processes of fast and thermal neutrons with solution of methyl orange organic dye

TL;DR

This study investigates how fast and thermal neutrons interact with methyl orange dye solutions, revealing potential for neutron detection and applications in nuclear monitoring and medicine.

Contribution

It demonstrates that organic dye solutions can serve as effective neutron flux detectors, especially when enhanced with boric acid, and explores their interaction mechanisms.

Findings

Dye molecules are completely destroyed without shielding or moderation.

Lead shielding reduces dye destruction to 10%.

Boric acid enhances dye destruction to 30% via neutron capture.

Abstract

The processes of neutron fluxes interaction with an aqueous solution of methyl orange organic dye have been investigated. The work was carried out on a LINAC LUE-300 at NSC KIPT. A set of tungsten plates was used as a neutron-generating target. The electron energy was 15 MeV, the average current was 20 mkA. The samples were located behind the lead shield and without it, with and without a moderator. Using the Geant4 toolkit for this experiment, neutron fluxes and their energy spectra were calculated at the location of experimental samples without a moderator and with a moderator of different thickness (1-5 cm). An analysis of the experimental results showed that when objects without lead shielding and without a moderator are irradiated, the dye molecules are completely destroyed. In the presence of lead protection, 10% destruction of the dye molecules was observed. When a five-centimeter polyethylene moderator was installed behind the lead shield, the destruction of dye molecules without boric acid on thermal neutrons was practically not observed. When the fluxes of thermal and epithermal neutrons interacted with a dye solution containing 4% boric acid, 30% destruction of dye molecules was observed due to the exothermic reaction 10B (n, a). The research has shown that solutions of organic dyes are a good material for creating detectors for recording fluxes of thermal and epithermal neutrons. Such detectors can be used for radioecological monitoring of the environment, in nuclear power engineering and nuclear medicine, and in the field of neutron capture therapy research in particular.