Neutron Activation in Environment, Nutrition and Epidemiology

The research in NANE group is focused on the development of the NAA (Neutron Activation Analysis) methodologies and on their application to environment, nutrition and epidemiology studies. NANE is a multidisciplinary group that has the collaboration of researchers from different fields of science: environment, chemistry, physics, environmental health, biology, biochemistry and geology. The capability of NAA techniques at RPI is based on irradiation and measurement facilities that allow the utilization of the entire neutron spectrum of the reactor, epithermal neutrons (ENAA), cyclic irradiations (CNAA), Compton suppression spectroscopy (CSS), automatic sampling changers (ASCs) and prompt gamma (PGAA) (ongoing work). Nowadays, the combination of NAA techniques in ITN permits the determination of the elements Ag, Al, As, Ba, Br, Ca, Cd, Ce, Cl, Co, Cr, Cs, Cu, Dy, Eu, F, Fe, Hf, Hg, I, K, La, Lu, Mn, Na, Nd, Rb, Sb, Sc, Se, Sm, Sr, Ta, Tb, Ti, U, V, Yb, Zn and Zr in biological, environmental and material samples.