Non-destructive aerial and terrestrial analysis of uranium isotopic activity by sensitive α-spectrometer for El-Sella site

Abstract

Any comprehensive radioactivity surveillance for a specific site should be carried out by a sensitive airborne system (e.g. carried on aircraft) together with terrestrial sampling and analysis. In the framework of ore, environmental and nuclear materials monitoring and investigation, the activity and isotopic compositions signature are considered crucial factors that must be considered, determined and evaluated. In this work and based on previous aerial monitoring, a very sensitive hyper pure germanium detector (Hp-Ge) of 50% efficiency with the Genie 2000 software has been used for spectroscopic non-destructive assay (NDA) of radioactivity content for samples collected from the Egyptian eastern desert (El-Sella Site). The identification of specific signature isotopes through their characteristic gamma lines and a calculation of their specific activities, activity ratios of 235U/238U and 234U/238U and mathematically estimation of the natural enrichment percentage are very vital and nuclear forensic targets. The results of measurements, analysis and calculations show that the Site samples have high radioactivity, natural enrichment origin and high uranium concentration. The obtained results are given tabulated, depicted, discussed and compared with the recent nationally published work and the international levels and limits.