Characterization of 1 Ci 241Am-Be neutron source for developing PGNAA technique for non-destructive determination of 10B in boron-based control rod materials

A compact in-house PGNAA setup was established to analyze 10B in boron-based neutron absorbers and shielding components. Neutron flux from the source was measured as a function of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) thickness, with a maximum flux of 3.2 × 103 n cm−2 s−1 at 24 mm HDPE. The setup was optimized for sample volume and observed a strong linear relationship between 10B concentration and the 478 keV prompt gamma count rate, with a detection limit of 7.6 ppm. The calibration was subsequently applied to several simulated sample solutions, as well as boron carbide (B4C) and ferroboron (FeB) solutions, with varying levels of 10B isotope enrichment. The analytical results obtained through PGNAA demonstrated strong concordance with those derived from Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICPMS), validating the reliability and accuracy of the in-house neutron-based analytical approach for 10B determination.