SIACON—Equipment for the on-line determination of the silicon content of coal

The paper describes an automatic equipment which allows to determine the silicon content of coal by neutron activation analysis. The technique is based on the measurement of gamma-ray intensity of the²⁸Al radionuclide, which is the result of the fast neutron reaction²⁸Si(n, p)²⁸ Al. The Activation part includes a Pu-238/Be neutron source which is located in the middle of the sample container; the measuring part includes two NaI(Tl)-scintillation counters. The total time of the anlysis of one sample amounts to a few minutes; the standard deviation of a single determination is 0.2% SiO₂.