BIOAqua Radioactivity Measurement system, is one of its kind, continuous water radioactivity measurement system for Tritium , Total Beta and Total Alpha (3H, β & α)

Ingestion of radioactive isotopes included in drinking water increases the likelihood of biological damage as a result of total energy transfer of the emitted alpha or beta particles to the cells of an organism.

That is why periodical radioactivity measurement in water for urban or industrial use is one of the demands of many water monitoring authorities like (DIR 98/83/EC in Europe) that sets the maximum levels of activity in drinking water for tritium (low energy beta), total beta and total alpha, and establishes those responsible for its supply, the health authorities and local authorities as responsible for this supervision.

Readings taken by BIOAqua RadioActivity Measurement systems can be directly transferred to an on line monitoring station to report the real time status of water.

This is very useful for determining water quality for Human consumption, agriculture and also detect characterising of spillage of RadioActive material in the waste water from the industries.

BIOAqua RadioActivity Mointoring System is an ideal system to monitor Radio Active spillage into waterways. It can operate as an individual unit or as several units in a network.

BIOAqua Radioactivity Measurement System – Operation

BIOAqua Radio Activity Mointoring System takes readings continually, enabling authorities and industries to identify the Radio Activity in the water ways.

The system comprises the following elements:

Measurement cell

Radioactivity detection is measured by using plastic scintillator micro-spheres. In the cell, the water sample flows through the micro-spheres that convert radioactive decay energy into photons.

Hydraulic circuit

Includes all the necessary elements (pumps, connections and solutions) to automatically carry out the calibration of the measuring cell, the cleaning of the plastic scintillator micro-spheres, and the measurement of the sample

Detector

The photons emitted by the plastic scintillator micro-spheres are detected with low background photomultipliers (PMT).

Active and passive shielding

BIOAqua Radio Activity Mointoring System has lead (Pb) passive shielding and scintillator plastic active shielding, facilitating noise reduction from the detector background signal.

Data is transmitted to a control centre automatically for analysis and use.

BIOAqua Radio Activity Mointoring System is a single compact autonomous unit, as well as a management system for readings with self-cleaning to give it a high-level of autonomy and to minimize maintenance operations. .

The system comprises the following elements:

The signal from each PMT is analysed by an FPGA in order to determine its validity, count the number of coinciding signals and determine their energy.

Data is handled by the signal conditioning module to obtain the count rate for each measurement and the associated energy spectrum. The same module carries out the calculation to define the background level, the critical and detection levels, and the detection efficiencies. It is also in charge of managing the hydraulic and communications systems.

The equipment has a screen for viewing results and a keyboard for communicating with the conditioning module. Network communication allows remote configuration of the device and the sending of results to a remote site for the analysis and evaluation of the results.