On-Line Monitoring of Radiocarbon Emissions in a Nuclear Facility with Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy

Area of Science:

• Nuclear Engineering
• Environmental Monitoring
• Spectroscopy

Background:

• Sensitive automated in situ monitoring of gaseous radiocarbon emissions from nuclear power plants is lacking.
• Current methods for radiocarbon detection have limited time resolution (days).

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel transportable instrument for in situ airborne radiocarbon detection.
• To evaluate the instrument's performance in a field measurement at a nuclear power plant.

Main Methods:

• Utilized mid-infrared cavity ring-down spectroscopy to detect the absorption line of ¹⁴CO₂.
• Deployed a transportable instrument for a 1-week field measurement at the Loviisa nuclear power plant.

Main Results:

• Achieved a time resolution of 45 minutes, significantly improving upon the days' resolution of current techniques.
• Maintained comparable sensitivity to existing methods.
• Demonstrated the capability to assess radiocarbon prevalence in different molecular species.

Conclusions:

• The presented optical in situ monitoring is a novel method for nuclear facility emissions.
• The developed instrument offers a significant advancement in sensitive, automated, and rapid radiocarbon detection.