Alternative irradiation system for efficiency manganese bath determination

An alternative irradiation system, which works with a radionuclide neutron source and manganese sulphate solution volume have been proposed for efficiency determination of a Manganese Bath System (MBS). This irradiation system was designed by simulation with MCNP5 code, considering a californium neutron source in several manganese sulphate volumes and different neutron reflectors. Although its solution specific activity are less than those in nuclear reactors, the simulation results have showed that the irradiation system proposed takes a manganese neutron capture increase up to 200 times when it compared to manganese neutron capture from a MBS whose diameter is about 100 cm. That becomes possible to use those samples for some of the absolute specific activity measuring methods. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.