Brevion: the new small-scale industrial gamma irradiator

The economical processing of low-volume products has been a challenge to the gamma industry since inception, influencing customers to send their products to contractors or choose alternative technologies. With the introduction of the Brevion irradiator (patent pending), economical gamma processing of low annual volume product lines is now possible. This innovative design is specifically targeted at plants processing product volumes of up to 20,000 m³/yr. Brevion provides good cobalt efficiency and good dose uniformity, thus processing these volumes efficiently and economically. The Brevion facility has the distinct advantage of a low capital cost, compared to medium-sized automatic tote plants, while maintaining similar performance. Lead-time for the construction phase is also considerably shorter, resulting in significantly lower start-up costs. Companies with low-volume product lines can now achieve the control provided by in-house processing, and eliminate transportation time and costs associated with shipping products off-site.     

Breathing new life into your production irradiator the case for reinvesting in your facility

This paper focuses on one of the important technology issues facing the gamma processing industry today: that of strategically planning for extending the useful life of a production irradiator. Production irradiator owners are typically faced with the difficult question of whether or not to significantly reinvest in their facilities after 15–20 years of service. At this point in time the irradiator has likely provided many years of safe, reliable service and has paid for itself many times over. As the equipment ages, it may become less reliable, due to wear and maintenance practices, and more costly to operate.

The cost of refurbishing the equipment may be significant and the downtime required to complete the refurbishment is also likely to be a challenge. This makes it essential to present a clear and rational justification for reinvesting in the facility. There has been a growing trend in recent years for irradiator owners to refurbish or upgrade their facilities. This trend is driven by the need to keep the facilities operating efficiently and safely as well as by the desire to take advantage of advancements that have occurred in the technology over the years. These advancements can enhance equipment efficiency, improve operational effectiveness and maintain or exceed quality assurance requirements. This paper illustrates the value of reinvesting in irradiator facilities, and highlights the significant benefits derived.     

How gamma radiation processing systems are benefiting from the latest advances in information technology

This paper discusses how gamma irradiation plants are putting the latest advances in computer and information technology to use for better process control, cost savings, and strategic advantages.

Some irradiator operations are gaining significant benefits by integrating computer technology and robotics with real-time information processing, multi-user databases, and communication networks. The paper reports on several irradiation facilities that are making good use of client/server LANs, user-friendly graphics interfaces, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, distributed I/O with real-time sensor devices, trending analysis, real-time product tracking, dynamic product scheduling, and automated dosimetry reading. These plants are lowering costs by fast and reliable reconciliation of dosimetry data, easier validation to GMP requirements, optimizing production flow, and faster release of sterilized products to market.

There is a trend in the manufacturing sector towards total automation using “predictive process control”. Real-time verification of process parameters “on-the-run” allows control parameters to be adjusted appropriately, before the process strays out of limits. Applying this technology to the gamma radiation process, control will be based on monitoring the key parameters such as time, and making adjustments during the process to optimize quality and throughput. Dosimetry results will be used as a quality control measurement rather than as a final monitor for the release of the product. Results are correlated with the irradiation process data to quickly and confidently reconcile variations. Ultimately, a parametric process control system utilizing responsive control, feedback and verification will not only increase productivity and process efficiency, but can also result in operating within tighter dose control set points.     

Lead replacement in the Molybdate Orange colour space

Due to the toxicological concerns over lead and lead compounds, there has been an increased trend to replace lead based materials in paint systems. Change in this instance has been driven primarily by Legislation and regulations, however in many cases global companies wish to show a unified approach and some have taken both a positive environmental marketing approach over their competitors with Lead free paints and a positive move on labour relations. The pigment manufactures have had the challenge to meet these requirements either from existing product ranges or to develop new pigments that are both commercially and technically viable. Due to the diverse application, systems and cost structures within General Industrial Paints no single product offers a universal solution. The higher performing pigments generally meet the higher specifications technically but because of their chemical complexity in processing and structure fail to achieve the lower comparable costs against Molybdate Oranges. With less complex pigment structures limitations are identified within the technical area. Additionally within the range of Molybdate Oranges differing grades are available treated to enhance temperature stability and chemical resistance or untreated to attain lower costs and increased saturation. For this reason paint producers have the choice of a single product within the mid performance area that would act as a compromise or alternatively select three products to fulfil all requirements with the associated logistic problems on supply, stock inventory and quality testing. Within the single product approach Pigment Orange 81 potentially offers the most flexible solution to the paint manufacturer in order to meet the volume market for Mid performance offering opacity, gloss, rheology, bleed resistance, good temperature stability and of great importance the ability to match the colour space occupied by Molybdate Orange. For the multiple pigment approach: High technical performance Pigment Orange 73 offering higher saturation than Molybdate Orange but with associated costs. Mid performance Pigment Orange 81 Cost effective Pigment Orange 34 and Pigment Orange 16 offer high saturation but limitations in durability.     

NorTRACK product tracking system—development and implementation

This paper presents the experience gained by developers and users with implementation and operation of NorTRACK^TM, a real-time computerized product tracking system. A Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) collects and transfers data in real time to NorTRACK’s Oracle^TM database on a Windows NT^TM server network. After extensive development and Beta testing at MDS Nordion’s Canadian Irradiation Centre in Montreal, Canada, NorTRACK was installed in January 1997 with a new irradiation facility in Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc.’s Albuquerque plant in the United States. NorTRACK communicates with the irradiator control and safety system, the plant's central manufacturing database, an innovative pallet staging and tote loading robot, and an automated dosimetry reading system. This integrated system allows the sterilization facility to monitor the irradiator operation and the flow of many products, through varied processing modes, continuously and reliably. As a result of operating with NorTRACK, both MDS Nordion’s CIC facility and the Endo-Surgery manufacturing site, are beginning to realize unique benefits in their respective operations. MDS Nordion is also initiating several future product enhancements and additional productivity modules. This paper describes the NorTRACK system, the various stages of the development project and Beta tests, and the experience of the users to date in their operations.     

The practice for eight-year operation of the cobalt-60 irradiation facility at Beijing Radiation Application Research Center

The radiation facility was made by Sulzer Company in Switzerland. The designed capacity is 3.7 × 10¹⁶Bq( 1MCi) and 12.21 × 10¹⁵Bq(330kCi)of Cobalt -60 source was loaded at the first phase. Current cobalt -60 source-loading is 2.4 × 10¹⁶Bq(650kCi). The equipment assembling and installation regulating and testing were completed at the end of 1988. The facility was put into commissioning in 1989. It operates 7000–8000 hours per year. The facility has been utilized to carry out many research work and irradiate many kinds of items. Lots of economical benefits have been gained since then. Now it is becoming a radiation processing model base in China. This paper summarized the strong and weak points of the design of the facility through in eight years' practice and analysed the economical benefits.     

Food irradiation: Australian quarantine regulatory attitude toward food exports

The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) is a major operational unit within the Federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry of Australia. AQIS has a long history of dealing with irradiation issues, as many imported goods (non food) require disinfestation treatment, for which gamma irradiation is the most cost effective, suitable and efficient means. A ministerial decision was taken in April 1997 which authorised AQIS to oversee a trial of irradiation as a pre-shipment treatment for food to be exported from Australia, with several caveats. Any such treatment would be required to meet importing country requirements, it would be conditional on export certification and would be required to meet certain minimum international requirements established by the Codex Alimentarius. These include minimum and maximum dosage levels and labelling to indicate irradiation treatment has taken place.

Strong interest has been generated by the announcement of this trial in a number of food industry segments, who are anxious to participate in the trial program. Further to the anticipated success of the export trial, AQIS is drafting suitable legislation which will allow exports of irradiated foodstuffs from a number of food categories, on an ongoing basis.     

Hybrid thermochemical/biological processing

The conventional view of biorefineries is that lignocellulosic plant material will be fractionated into cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and terpenes before these components are biochemically converted into market products. Occasionally, these plants include a thermochemical step at the end of the process to convert recalcitrant plant components or mixed waste streams into heat to meet thermal energy demands elsewhere in the facility. However, another possibility for converting high-fiber plant materials is to start by thermochemically processing it into a uniform intermediate product that can be biologically converted into a bio-based product. This alternative route to bio-based products is known as hybrid thermochemical/biological processing. There are two distinct approaches to hybrid processing: (a) gasification followed by fermentation of the resulting gaseous mixture of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H(2)), and carbon dioxide (CO(2)) and (b) fast pyrolysis followed by hydrolysis and/or fermentation of the anhydrosugars found in the resulting bio-oil. This article explores this "cart before the horse" approach to biorefineries.     

A state of the art electron beam sterilization facility : An integrated system

The design of an electron beam sterilization facility requires the integration of the accelerator, product handling system and shielding. The size and power of the accelerator as well as the characteristics of the product handling system are determined by the type and volume of products to be sterilized. The system controls must track the product as it moves from the non sterile area through the electron beam to the sterile area. The system must not only monitor identification, position, orientation etc., but also isolate those products which for any reason may not have been properly sterilized. The shielding design is a function of the requirements for the accelerator and product handling system with an overriding concern for worker safety.

This paper discusses a state of the art electron beam sterilization facility designed to follow guidelines for electron beam sterilization published by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI).     

Process control and dosimetry in a multipurpose irradiation facility

Availability of the multipurpose irradiation facility at the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute has encouraged several local industries to use gamma radiation for sterilization or decontamination of various products. Prior to routine processing, dose distribution studies are undertaken for each product and product geometry. During routine irradiation, dosimeters are placed at the minimum and maximum dose positions of a process load.     

Development of an up-flow irradiation device for electron beam wastewater treatment

Electron beam irradiation processing is an available technology to treat sludge, groundwater, surface water and industrial and municipal wastewater. The use of this technology into environmental areas has moved slowly because industry and government are always conservative in the adoption of new processes, especially when they can not observe the efficiency and cost effectiveness of a treatment in a full scale facility.

In this direction the hydraulic system where the water is presented to the electron beam governs the efficacy of this technology. The present work is based on the development of the irradiation device, an up-flow delivery system that alleviates the dependence of energy transfer to the stream with the beam accelerating voltage (penetration capability).

In this work a series of experiments were performed to establish the relationships between accelerating voltage ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 MeV, current, water flow and deposited dose in order to optimize the operating parameters and the selection of a cost-effective commercial electron beam.     

Aspekte und Beispiele der Anwendung der Methoden der Thermischen Analyse in Industriellen Bereichen

The methods of thermal analysis are used in many ways in academic research institutions and in industry. The exchange of information leads to an activation of such studies. However, the differences in problems, methods and requirements result in communication problems between the users in the above groups. This may lead to regrettable deficits. Two industrial examples demonstrate that thermoanalytical investigations give useful problem solutions, though they do not meet the requirements of academic research.This revised version was published online in November 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Accredited dose measurements for validation of radiation sterilized products

The activities and services of the accredited Risø High Dose Reference Laboratory are described. The laboratory operates according to the European standard EN 45001 regarding Operation of Testing Laboratories, and it fulfills the requirements of being able to deliver traceable dose measurements for control of radiation sterilization. The accredited services include:

1. 1. Irradiation of dosimeters and test samples with cobalt-60 gamma rays.

2. 2. Irradiation of dosimeters and test samples with 10 MeV electrons.

3. 3. Issue of and measurement with calibrated dosimeters.

4. 4. Measurement of the dosimetric parameters of an irradiation facility.

5. 5. Measurement of absorbed dose distribution in irradiated products.

The paper describes these services and the procedures necessary for their execution.     

Standardization and regulatory control on radiation processing dosimetry in China

In 1983, in order to suit the rapid development of radiation processing, a programme of high dose standardization was initiated in China. As a result, a high dose measurement system for gamma - rays including primary standards, transfer standards and working dosimeters, has been established. In this paper, the scheme of dosimetry traceability to national standards for gamma - rays is illustrated. The aspects of standardization and the progress of dosimetry of radiation processing are also outlined.

In order to implement “the Law on Metrology of the Peoples Republic of China” and to guarantee the product quality of radiation processing. SBTS and SCTS have jointly issued “the Provisional Regulation of Metrological Supervision and Management for Radiation Processing”. A series of national standards, verification regulations and technical norms have been enacted and issued on the radiation processing dosimetry and on the approval of irradiation facilities. These documents are expected to play significant roles in the dose measurement standardization and the regularity control.     

Waste minimization in the Los Alamos Medical Radioisotope Program

Since the mid-1970s the Los Alamos Medical Radioisotope Program has been irradiating target materials to produce and recover radioisotopes for applications in medicine, environmental science, biology, physics, materials research, and other disciplines where radiotracers find utility. By necessity, the chemical processing of targets and the isolation of radioisotopes generates radioactive waste materials. In recent years there have been federal mandates requiring us to discontinue the use of hazardous materials and to minimize radioactive waste volumes. As a result, substantial waste reduction measures have been introduced at the irradiation facility, in processing approaches, and even in the ways the product isotopes are supplied to users.     

Continuous hydrothermal synthesis of CoFe2O4 nanoparticles

We have investigated the continuous hydrothermal synthesis and crystallization of spinel CoFe₂O₄ via the reaction of ferric nitrate and cobalt nitrate with sodium hydroxide. The reaction was carried out in water at temperatures ranging from 475 to 675 K and pressures of 25 MPa. The relative solubility of the precipitating cations was found to play a critical role in attaining the correct product. It was found necessary to control pH and temperature in order to prevent premature precipitation of iron in the reactor. Two variations of the continuous hydrothermal technique were examined—cold mixing and hot mixing. The cold mixing experiments produced a product with less impurity than the hot mixing experiments. Furthermore, the cold mixing configuration was successful in producing uniform nanoparticles of CoFe₂O₄. A mechanism of particle formation was postulated involving the precipitation of metal hydroxides at ambient conditions, dissolution of the hydroxides as temperature is increased followed by rapid precipitation of metal oxides at elevated temperatures. The hot mixing experiments, on the other hand, simply involve the precipitation of metal oxides due to the addition of the hot hydroxide solution. In both cases, very fine particles of CoFe₂O₄ are produced in the range of the processing conditions investigated.     

Feasibility study of a commercial irradiation plant in Morocco

On the basis of a market survey, Centre National de l’Energie, des Sciences et des Techniques Nucléaires carried out a feasibility study of a commercial irradiation facility, identified the principal products which will be retained for the industrial applications and evaluated the projection of their volumes for the next five years. The site implementation of the irradiation plant is defined according to the national nuclear regulation and respecting the end users requirements. The costs of the irradiation services and the transport have been discussed and accepted by the industrials. This study shows that all the conditions are regrouped now in Morocco to introduce the irradiation technology to the industrial scale.     

Polyolefin: changing supply-demand framework and new technology

Polyolefin industry is now under a remarkable change of international supply-demand framework and its market is splitting into commodity and high performance products. It is getting more important for a material being harmless and comfortable, while the “life cycle cost”, which includes the cost during use and the recycle cost after use, is regarded as more important to evaluate a material. Those changes are accelerating the inter-material penetration. Several examples of the material design and production technologies, which responded to the changing market needs and developed new applications of polyolefin, are discussed.     

Recovery of volatile products from dilute high-fouling process streams

As biomass hydrolysis, and fermentation technologies approach commercial viability, advancements in product recovery technologies will be required. For cases in which fermentation products are more volatile than water, recovery by distillation is often the technology of choice. Distillation technologies that will allow the economic recovery of dilute volatile products from streams containing a variety of impurities have been developed and commercially demonstrated. Distillation tower and tray designs, along with specialized heat-exchanger designs, allowing for extended processing intervals on solutions containing lignocellulosic residues, organic acids, and inorganic salts concentrations >100 g/L are in commerical operation. In the case of ethanol, distillation energy consumption efficiencies for processing solutions containing <40 g/L of desired product can approach demonstrated energy consumption efficiencies for solutions containing concentrations >120 g/L. These proprietary technologies have been applied individually at commercial scale, and designs have been developed that incorporate the combined technologies with only a marginal increase in capital investment compared to traditional methods.     

Rational Design of Anode Materials Based on Group IVA Elements (Si,Ge, and Sn) for Lithium‐Ion Batteries

Lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) represent the state‐of‐the‐art technology in rechargeable energy‐storage devices and they currently occupy the prime position in the marketplace for powering an increasingly diverse range of applications. However, the fast development of these applications has led to increasing demands being placed on advanced LIBs in terms of higher energy/power densities and longer life cycles. For LIBs to meet these requirements, researchers have focused on active electrode materials, owing to their crucial roles in the electrochemical performance of batteries. For anode materials, compounds based on Group IVA (Si, Ge, and Sn) elements represent one of the directions in the development of high‐capacity anodes. Although these compounds have many significant advantages when used as anode materials for LIBs, there are still some critical problems to be solved before they can meet the high requirements for practical applications. In this Focus Review, we summarize a series of rational designs for Group IVA‐based anode materials, in terms of their chemical compositions and structures, that could address these problems, that is, huge volume variations during cycling, unstable surfaces/interfaces, and invalidation of transport pathways for electrons upon cycling. These designs should at least include one of the following structural benefits: 1) Contain a sufficient number of voids to accommodate the volume variations during cycling; 2) adopt a “plum‐pudding”‐like structure to limit the volume variations during cycling; 3) facilitate an efficient and permanent transport pathway for electrons and lithium ions; or 4) show stable surfaces/interfaces to stabilize the in situ formed SEI layers.