Infra-red spectroscopy was employed to study functional groups absorption changes from the nuclear transformation of Nitrogen-14 to Carbon by thermal neutron bombardment. Selected target materials (Diphenylamine, Thioacetamide, Hydrazine Sulphate and Ammonium Nitrate) representing organic and inorganic substrate, covalent and ionic bonded Nitrogen, varying in thermal stability and other properties. The targets were irradiated in low power reactor for 180, 270, pulsed- 270 and 360. The IR spectroscopy showed that neutron irradiation improved N-H bending absorbance in organic target while also depleting target due to transient temperature exposure as well as conversion to Carbon-14 product. The Nitrogen groups contained in the target compounds generally reported loss of absorption peak area with increasing irradiation duration, while analogous Carbon groups gained prominence. Results suggest that ATR-FTIR can be an ideal tool for in-situ monitoring of Carbon-14 production.
Key words: Radiocarbon Production, MNSR Reactor, ATR Infrared Spectroscopy, n,p Nuclear Transformation
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