Mixed waste reduction in radioactivity determination by using plastic scintillators

In this work, we tested whether plastic scintillation (PS) is a suitable alternative to liquid scintillation (LS) and Cerenkov techniques for beta emitter detection. The main advantage of this alternative is the reduction of mixed waste produced as consequence of the measurement process. In addition, the quality parameters obtained with PS are as reliable as those obtained with LS and allow determination, with a relative error <10%, for 90Sr/90Y in low level activity aqueous samples. Gamma and alpha emitters were also measured with plastic scintillators using linear and logarithmic amplified scintillation detectors. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.