Radioactive Isotopes in Industry

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Radioactive Isotopes in Industry

• Prof. Ahmed El-Kamash
• AEAE
• EmailKamash20_at_yahoo.com

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Technical Applications of Radioactive Materials

• Insect control
• Increasing genetic variability
• Food preservation
• Medicine
• 1) Radioisotope tracing
• 2) Radiography
• 3) Gauging
• 4) Smoke detectors

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Radioisotope tracing

• Environmental tracers
• Water resources
• Fertilizers
• Industrial tracers

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Industrial tracing

• Solids (powder and granular forms), liquids and
  gases to investigate or trace the movement of
  other materials, even within closed and sometimes
  inaccessible pipework and vessels
• Most of these radiotracers can be detected and/or
  measured easily by their emissions

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Tracing in Oil Industry

• Unsealed sources used in radiotracer and marker
  studies
• To indicate the flow rate of the well fluids,
  radiotracer spikes, comprising 99Tcm and 131I
  solutions, are released from logging tools into
  production wells and the time taken for them to
  traverse the known distance between two radiation
  detectors is determined

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Radiography

• Non-destructive testing (NDT) is commonly
  performed to provide quality assurance during
  engineering projects
• Gamma-emitting radioisotopes can be used to check
  welds of new gas and oil pipeline systems, with
  the radioactive source being placed inside the
  pipe and the film outside the welds.
• Other forms of radiography (neutron radiography/
  autoradiography) that can be used to gauge the
  thickness and density of materials, or to locate
  components that are not visible by other means

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Radiography In Oil Industry

• In oil and gas industry gamma radiography, and to
  a lesser extent X radiography are used to ensure
  that all constructions and fabrications are
  completed to the required standard.
• It is essential that all components and
  connections, particularly welds in the plant and
  equipment, withstand the very high physical
  forces (for example, forces generated by
  hydrostatic pressures) associated with oil and
  gas production.

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Gauging

• Gauges containing radioactive sources are in wide
  use in all industries where levels of gases,
  liquids and solids must be checked.
• These gauges are most useful where heat, pressure
  or corrosive substances, such as molten glass or
  molten metal, make it impossible or difficult to
  use direct contact gauges.
• Radioisotope thickness gauges are used in the
  making of continuous sheets of material including
  paper, plastic film, metal, etc, when it is
  desirable to avoid contact between the gauge and
  the material

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Gauging in Oil Industry

• Installed Gauges Used to monitor or control
• 1 ) Density of fluid flowing through pipelines,
  for example on lines carrying cement slurry to
  grout in (to cement with liquid mortar) a
  casing string, and on crude oil export lines.

Installed density gauge (courtesy National
Radiological Protection Board, UK).
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Oil Industry

• Installed Gauges used to
• Fluid levels in vessels and to detect the
  interface between fluids of different densities,
• a) such as the water, oil and gas interfaces in
  separators.
• B) as mud tanks,
• C) flare knockout drum,
• D) export gas scrubbers and vent headers of
  storage tanks.
• Level gauges are installed in locations which
  render the gauges irretrievable, such as in the
  jacket legs of offshore platforms to indicate, as
  the legs are grouted into the seabed, that the
  cement slurry has risen to the required level in
  the outside portion of the leg. Their use is
  equally common downstream in oil refineries and
  petrochemical facilities.

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Oil Industry

• Mobile gauging
• Fire protection equipment use hand-held level
  gauges to determine the fluid level in fire
  extinguisher bottles and cylinders.

Mobile gauge for detecting the level of liquids
in closed fire extinguisher cylinders (courtesy
National Radiological Protection Board, UK).
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Smoke detectors

• One of the most common uses of radioisotopes is
  in smoke detectors. These contain a small amount
  of americium-241, which is a decay product of
  plutonium-241 originating in nuclear reactors.
  The americium-241 emits alpha particles which
  ionize the air and allow a current to flow
  between two electrodes. If smoke enters the
  detector it absorbs the alpha particles and
  interrupts the current, setting off the alarm

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Oil Industry

• Well Logging
• logging tools are placed in the well to measure
  physical parameters in the well, the geological
  properties of the rocks around the well, and the
  presence of elements in the rocks

Radioactive sealed sources incorporated in a
pipeline pig (courtesy Scotoil Group plc).
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Well Logging

• Among the many types of tool are means to measure
  fluid temperature, pressure, density and flow
  rates detect casing corrosion, wear and other
  damage and measure rock density, porosity and
  isotope content.
• Some of the tools contain one or more radiation
  detectors and radioactive sources or a machine
  that generates ionizing radiation

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Well Logging

• nuclear logging techniques
• 1) gamma measurement technique, simply measures
  and identifies the gamma rays emitted by
  naturally occurring radionuclides in rocks to
  help distinguish the shale content of sedimentary
  rocks and aid lithological identification. The
  log records the uranium, thorium and potassium
  content of the rocks.

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Well Logging

• neutronneutron or compensated neutron log,
  demands a radioactive source of up to several
  hundred GBq of AmBe or PuBe in the tool to emit
  45 MeV neutrons.
• An elongated skid hydraulically presses the tool
  against the wall of the well and two radiation
  detectors, located at different distances from
  the source in the tool, measure the neutrons
  backscattered by the rock formation. The
  relationship between the two readings provides a
  porosity index for the rock. This indicates how
  porous the rock is and whether it is likely to
  contain hydrocarbons or water

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Well Logging

• gammagamma or density tool, which contains two
  detectors and a 137Cs source, usually of up to 75
  GBq. The amount of gamma backscatter from the
  formation provides the density log that, together
  with the porosity log, is a valuable indicator of
  the presence of gas. A brand name may refer to
  this technique

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Well Logging

• neutrongamma logging, employs a tool that houses
  a miniature linear accelerator. It contains up to
  several hundred GBq of tritium (3H), a very low
  energy beta particle emitter. When a high voltage
  (typically 80 kV) is applied to the device, it
  accelerates deuterium atoms (2H) that bombard the
  tritium target and generate a large number of
  very high energy (1415 MeV) neutrons in pulses
  lasting a few microseconds. Certain nuclides
  become radioactive when hit by this neutron flux,
  and their subsequent radioactive decay within the
  next few milliseconds can be monitored when the
  process is repeated a great number of times per
  second. Either the gamma radiation emitted as the
  activated atoms decay or the thermal neutron
  decay characteristics are measured to identify
  the activated species of atoms. The chlorine or
  salt water content of the rocks is of particular
  interest. A brand name may refer to this
  technique.

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NORM In Oil Industry

• Produces water,
• Sludge and scales,
• Contaminated items,
• Waste arising from waste treatment activities,
  and
• Waste arising from decommissioning activates.