Maheshwar Sharon - Nuclear Chemistry

Jointly published with ANE Books Pvt. Ltd.

In addition to this printed edition, there is a local printed edition of this work available via Ane Books in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan) and Africa (all countries in the African subcontinent).

ISBN of the Co-Publishers edition: 9789386761552

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

I have read your manuscript with great interest. I am sure that the book will be well received as a clear and concise treatment of radiation detection and measurement. The book is also attributed in large measure to teach undergraduate, graduate and other educational courses.

We are glad to learn that this book has been appreciated by readers so much that its 2 edition is published. In this 2 edition, we have added some new topics considering the syllabus of the M.Sc. course dealing with Nuclear Chemistry like the Shell model, fission/fusion reaction, natural radioactive equilibrium series, nuclear reactions carried out by various types of accelerators, etc. It is hoped that this 2 edition will be appreciated by readers and graduate and postgraduate students.

It has been our experience that students of different disciplines desirous of using the tracer technique face the problem of selecting an isotope most suitable for their work. Having selected the isotope, the next problem they face is in selecting the type of counter, type of source sample, duration for which the counting must be made, and selecting the radiation emitted by the isotope for its efficient detection. This book is an effort toward guiding the readers on these aspects. Though there are many books available on this topic, they are either very advanced or very elementary. Students have, therefore, been requesting the author for many years to write a book of this nature. This book is, thus, an outcome of the lectures given to Engineering and Science graduate and postgraduate students who have had very little exposure to the field of radioactivity. It has been tried to explain topics from the experience the author gained while teaching this subject in England and India. The author has also given a few results obtained by him while developing some experiments for students studying this course.

It has been the experience that students often resort to memorizing the decay process without actually understanding the logic of various decay processes. Similarly, it is observed that students invariably select a counting procedure without understanding the reasons behind its selection. A novel concept is, therefore, developed to explain not only the decay processes but also the selection of counting procedures for the detection and measurement of radioactivity. It is hoped that students would get an exposure to select the counting procedures rather than simply getting bookish knowledge of the subject. This book, thus, concentrates on the techniques concerned with the detection and measurement of radioactivity. However, in order to appreciate the subject, an introduction to properties of radioactivity, e.g., law of decay of radioactivity, type of decay, and interaction of radiation including particulate radiation with matter are dealt with appropriately. This book builds up its foundation from the nature of the interaction of radiation with matter, which brings out the differentiations among ionization counter, scintillation counter, and solid-state detector. Based on decay properties like nature of radiation, its energy, and abundances (which are given in the decay scheme), an attempt is made to select the type of counter for measuring radioactivity. Similarly, the selection of the form in which a sample should be prepared for counting is also discussed. The statistics of counting is enumerated, which can assist to decide some of the routine-type corrections like subtraction and division of standard deviation calculation. Finally, an effort is made to make the reader aware that there is a difference between an ordinary chemical laboratory and a radiochemical one. There is a need to understand that in designing a radiochemical laboratory, various considerations are needed which normally are not essential for an ordinary chemical laboratory. Accordingly, these aspects of design of a radioactive laboratory have been discussed. At the end, various possible questions related to counting are mentioned so that the reader after solving them would become more familiar with this field.