9:00 to 9:15 / Registration/Presentation / Lecture room
9:15 to 9:45 / Fundamentals of PSm: basic principles / Lecture room
9:45 to 10:45 / Fundamentals of PSm:mechanism and performances / Lecture room
10:45 to 11:15 / Coffee break / Lecture room
11:15 to 11:45 / Applications: highly salty samples and α/β indices / Lecture room
11:45 to 12:30 / Applications: extractive Plastic Scintillation Microspheres / Lecture room
12:30 to 13:00 / Applications: continuous monitoring / Lecture room
13:00 to 14:30 / Lunch / Canteen
14:30 to 15:00 / Practical aspects / Laboratory
15:00 to 17:30 / Laboratory practice: sample preparation / Laboratory
SATURDAY 16TH
9:00 to 9:30 / Laboratory practice: reusability and cleaning / Laboratory
9:30 to 10:30 / Data treatment: detection efficiencies and spectra / Lecture room
10:30 to 11:00 / Coffee break / Lecture room
11:00 to 12:00 / Data treatment: α/β discrimination performances / Lecture room
12:00 to 12:30 / Final remarks / Lecture room
Lecturers: Luz Santiago, Dr. Hector Bagán, Dr. Alex Tarancón and Dr. José Francisco García.
Registration and presentation (Friday 15th, from 9:00 to 9:15 at lecture room)
- Delivery of the workshop documentation
- Presentation of the workshop
Fundamentals of PSm: Basic principles (Friday 15th, from 9:15 to 9:45 at lecture room)
- Plastic scintillation microspheres (PSm) vs liquid scintillators: general characteristics
- PSm: shape, size, compositions and suppliers
- Advantages and disadvantages
- Main applications
- Characteristics of the vial preparation and measurement
Fundamentals of PSm: mechanism and performances (Friday 15th, from 9:45 to 10:45 at lecture room)
- Mechanism and quenching effects
- Particle quenching: effect of the PSm diameter and sample composition
- Monte Carlo simulation
- Optical quenching
- Effect of the PSm composition
- α/β separation with PSm
Applications: highly salty samples and α/β indices (Friday 15th, from 11:15 to 11:45 at lecture room)
- Samples with high ionic content: determination of a14C radiotracer in samples coming from separation processes
- Determination of α/β indices in water samples
Applications: extractive plastic scintillation microspheres (ePSm) (Friday 15th, from 11:45 to 12:30 at lecture room)
- ePSm: separation and vial preparation in a single step
- Application to the quantification of 90Sr/90Y in water samples
- Application to the quantification of a 14C radiotracer
- Novel applications: scintillation imprinted polymers
Applications: continuous monitoring (Friday 15th, from 12:30 to 13:00 at lecture room)
- Continuous monitoring of radioactivity:the case of alpha and beta radionuclides
- Basic performances of a detection cell based on PSm
- Stability and memory effects
- Analytical quality parameters for low level monitoring
- Application to the monitoring of Ebro river
Practical aspects (Friday 15th, from 14:30 to 15:00 at laboratory)
- Vial preparation
- Vial homogenization: sonication and centrifugation
- Measurement
- Post-measurement and reusability: filtering and cleaning
Laboratory practice (Friday 15th, from 15:00 to 17:30 at laboratory)
- Formation of working groups and material distribution
- Preparation of samples: background, beta (3H, 63Ni, 14C, 36Cl, 90Sr/90Y…) and alpha (241Am)
- Homogenization of vials
- Measurement
Laboratory practice (Saturday 16th, from 9:00 to 9:30 at laboratory)
- Filtering of the sample vials and PSm cleaning
Data treatment: detection efficiencies and spectra (Saturday 16th, from 9:30 to 10:30 at lecture room)
- Background: values and spectra
- Beta and alpharadionuclides: detection efficiencies and spectra
Data treatment: α/β discrimination performances (Saturday 16th, from 11:00 to 12:00 at lecture room)
- α/β separation in Quantulus detector
- α/β separation in Triathler detector