Transmutation of radioactive cesium and iodine using gamma-radiation from light nuclei under proton bombardment

Abstract

In this work, we propose a novel approach to transmute long-lived radionuclides, by using γ-radiation emitted in the bombardment of light nuclei by low-energy proton beams. We used Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate the feasibility of photo-transmutation of hazardous radioactive cesium and iodine by the γ-radiation from proton capture in 7Li. The dependence of the γ-ray the proton energy (in the region of the 441 keV resonance) and on the thickness of 7Li target are presented. For 10 mA proton beam, the γ-ray yield is estimated to be 2.1 × 109 s−1. When such γ-radiation irradiates on the CsI target, the transmutation yield reaches 5 × 107 s−1, which is comparable to the value resulted by the state-of-the-art Laser-Compton scattering γ-ray source. The proton-induced resonance γ-ray source can therefore be a promising approach for nuclear waste management.