Recovery of α-Al2O3 from Ionizing Radiation Dosimetric Sensors

Edgar Aparecido Sanches, Ademir Geraldo Cavallari Costalonga, Luana de Freitas Nascimento, Yvone Maria Mascarenhas, Yvone Primerano Mascarenhas

Research outputpeer-review

Abstract

Corundum, sapphire or α-Al2O3 is an important technological material in many optical and electronic applications such as solid-state lasers, optical windows and, more recently, as a radiation detector. Landauer (Glenwood, IL, USA) accumulated large number of archived and stored Luxel™ dosemeters composed of Al2O3:C, which were subjected to a recovery process. Due to the importance of this advanced crystalline material in OSL dosimetry, a recovery process was developed based on the dosemeters calcination and Al2O3:C has been reused in manufacturing of new dosemeters. This paper does not aim to optimize the recovery process, but provides an opportunity to study the involved process parameters and to recover this valuable crystalline material from used dosemeters. To the best of our knowledge no other recovery process involving this dosimetric material was described in scientific literature. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR), Thermogravimetry/Differential Thermoanalysis (TG/DTA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES), Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) and Rietveld Refinement were used to characterize the recovered material and to check for the stability of its structural and dosimetric properties.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)113-120
JournalJournal of Materials Research
Volume18
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 23 Mar 2015

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