PAA Selenium

Using PAA ro measure Selenium concentrations.

According to Krouse<ref name="Krous1962"> H.R. Krause and H.G. Thode,"Thermodynamic Properties and Geochemistry of Iosotopic Compounds of Selenium",.Can. J. Chem., vol 40, pg 367</ref> , the fractional concentration of Se-82/Se-76 in plant material is observed to be less than from primordial (meteoric) concentrations by as much as 1.2%. Anaerobic bacteria are known to reduce selenates and senelites in biological systems. This may be the reason plant material has fractionation of selenium isotopes. They also observe excess concentrations of up to 0.4% in soil.

Plant material appears to detect environmental selenium.

Can one perform PAA measurements of Se-82 and Se-76?

Neutron knockout of Se-82

If you knock a neutron out of Se-82 you produce the unstable isotope Se-81 which Beta emitts with half life of 18 min and a meta-state that emmits a 103 keV gamma with a 57 minute half life.

[math]{82 \atop 34\; }Se (\gamma,n){81 \atop \; }Se[/math]

Other prominent photons

260 & 276 keV for the 57 minute half life isotope

Neutron knockout of Se-76

If you knock a neutron out of Se-76 you produce the unstable isotope Se-75 which has a half life of 119 days.

[math]{76 \atop\; }Se (\gamma,n){75 \atop \; }Se[/math]

The prominent photons emitted have the following energies

136, 264, and 279 keV

The article below describes how plant material and soil contain Se-76 to Se-82 ratios that differ from other natural samples by 1.5%. They argue that it is due to the bacteria living in plant material.

File:Krouse CanJournChem 40 1962 p367.pdf

Plant material is a natural way to sample the selenium content to determine if there are difference isotopic ratios due to the impact of human activities on the environment.

Experiments

Chlorine

It looks like Cl-35 is abundant as you see photon energies of 146 keV and 2127 keV (you can barely see 1176 keV) from Cl-34's decay (neutron knocked out of Cl-35).

The half life is 32 minutes.

Should check the half life from the run AccOnAlInDetASe-AinDetD_001.root using the calibration

MPA->Draw("0.18063+0.960133*evt.Chan>> SeRun_008(8000,0.5,8000.5)","evt.ADCid==3");

Irradiation of Horse Mineral Supplement

Chlorine is a dominant signal

First, look at the peak around 146 keV

Next I plotted the counts as a function of time to get an exponentially decaying graph. When doing an exponential fit here, the parameter "b" given by root will be the decay constant.

Root gives a value b = 3.59543x10^-4, which yields a half life of 32.1 minutes.

Now do the same for the 2127 keV line

Here are the counts plotted as a function of time

Root gives b = 3.26947x10^-4, which yields a half life of 35.3 minutes.

Potassium is a potential signal

Looking at the spectrum for the fast irradiation sample, there are 2 prominent lines that could be from 38-K. The mechanism would be a single neutron knockout from a stable 39-K nucleus. The two most dominant energies of the three for 38-K are 2167 keV and 3936 keV and the half life is 7.63 minutes. Below is a fit to the energy spectrum histogram

Now check the half life

Root gives a value for b = -1.44218x10^(-3), which in turn gives a half life of 8 minutes

Next check the 3936 peak

and check the half life

Root gives a value for b = - 1.14372x10^(-3), which in turn gives a half life of 10.1 minutes

It seems very possible that 38-K could be in the sample of horse feed.

First Observation of Se lines

Using the 44 Machine at 7 kW power and 44 meV incident electron energy to produce a bremsstrahlung spectrum with a mean energy of 15 meV.

All runs lasting less than 214 seconds have time stamp that gives real time if you divide by clock frequency of 20 MHz.  The first 32 bits are used for a real time measurement.

Detector Efficiency

Below is the runlist for finding the efficiency of the detector at position R

Source	Serial #	Reference Date	Activity	Start	Stop	Live
Na-22	129743	7-01-08	9.427 microCi	15:49	16:19	1796.803
Cs-137	129793	7-01-08	1.006 microCi	14:25	14:56	1879.606
Mn-54	129807	7-01-08	11.77 microCi	15:00	15:30	1793.420
Co-60	129740	7-01-08	10.42 microCi	15:33	15:43	569.725

Below are the theoretical calculations for the theoretical decay frequencies

Na-22, 9.427micro Ci on July 1, 2008, half life 2.602 +/- 0.002 years, 99.937% for 1274.52 and 178.8 for 511 line , activity in March 31, 2016 =1.196micro Ci

= [math]\left (0.99937 \right )\left ( 1.196 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 44,224 Hz [/math] for the 1274 line

= [math]\left (1.788 \right )\left ( 1.196 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 79122.6 Hz [/math] for the 511 line

Cs-137, 661.660 line, 85.21% * 1.066micro Ci on July 1, 2008, half life 30.0 +/- 0.2 yrs, March 31, 2016 activity = 0.891micro Ci expected rate for 661 line

= [math]\left (0.8521 \right )\left ( 0.891 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 28091.2 Hz [/math]

Mn-54, on July 1, 2008, half life =312.20 +/- 0.07 days, 99.975% intensity on 834.826 , March 31, 2016 activity =0.02328micro Ci

= [math]\left (0.99975 \right )\left ( 0.02328 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 861.1 Hz [/math] for the 834 line

Co-60, 10.42micro Ci July 1, 2008, half life 5.271 +/- 0.001 years, 99.0 % for 1173.237 and 99.9824 % for 1332.501, March 31, 2016 activity=3.759micro Ci

= [math]\left (0.99 \right )\left ( 3.759 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 137692.17 Hz [/math] for the 1173 line

= [math]\left (0.999824 \right )\left ( 3.759 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 139058.52 Hz [/math] for the 1332 line

Below is a runlist for position k

Source	Serial #	Reference Date	Activity	Start	Stop	Live
Na-22	129743	7-01-08	9.427 microCi	14:54	15:01	434.087
Cs-137	129793	7-01-08	1.006 microCi	15:48	15:55	413.925
Mn-54	129807	7-01-08	11.77 microCi	15:28	15:40	705.186
Co-60	129740	7-01-08	10.42 microCi	15:41	15:47	346.092

Below are the theoretical decay frequencies

Na-22, 9.427micro Ci on July 1, 2008, half life 2.602 +/- 0.002 years, 99.937% for 1274.52 and 178.8 for 511 line , activity in April 14, 2016 =1.183micro Ci

= [math]\left (0.99937 \right )\left ( 1.183 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 43743.4 Hz [/math] for the 1274 line

= [math]\left (1.788 \right )\left ( 1.183 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 78262.5 Hz [/math] for the 511 line

Cs-137, 661.660 line, 85.21% * 1.066micro Ci on July 1, 2008, half life 30.0 +/- 0.2 yrs, April 14, 2016 activity =0.890 micro Ci expected rate for 661 line

= [math]\left (0.8521 \right )\left ( 0.890 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 28059.7 Hz [/math]

Mn-54, on July 1, 2008, half life =312.20 +/- 0.07 days, 99.975% intensity on 834.826 , April 14, 2016 activity =0.02251micro Ci

= [math]\left (0.99975 \right )\left ( 0.02251 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 830.79 Hz [/math] for the 834 line

Co-60, 10.42micro Ci July 1, 2008, half life 5.271 +/- 0.001 years, 99.0 % for 1173.237 and 99.9824 % for 1332.501, April 14, 2016 activity=3.74micro Ci

= [math]\left (0.99 \right )\left ( 3.74 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 136996.2 Hz [/math] for the 1173 line

= [math]\left (0.999824 \right )\left ( 3.74 \times 10^{-6} \mbox{Ci} \right) \left (\frac{ (3.7 \times 10^{10} \mbox{Hz}}{\mbox{Ci}} \right)= 138355.6 Hz [/math] for the 1332 line

Below is a table where the actual efficiency will be calculated for position R (farthest position).

Run	Source	Energy (keV)	Expected Rate (Hz)	HpGe Expected Rate (Hz)	HpGe Det D Efficiency (%)
Eff_003	Na-22	511		79122.6
Eff_003	Na-22	1274.537	44224
Eff_005	Cs-137	661.657	28091.2
Eff_006	Mn-54	834.848	861.1
Eff_007	Co-60	1173.228	137692
Eff_007	Co-60	1332.492	139058.52

SeRun_01-11-16

SeRun_03-07-16

References

<references/>

MSDS

Selenium shot, amorphous, 2-6 mm, Puratronic, 99.999% Alfa Aesar product # 10603 File:AlphaAesarSelenium MDSD.pdf

Informative links

http://www.deq.idaho.gov/regional-offices-issues/pocatello/southeast-idaho-phosphate-mining/southeast-idaho-selenium-investigations/

https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sti/3169894.pdf

http://giscenter.isu.edu/research/Techpg/sisp/index.htm

PAA_Research