A simulation study for a cost-effective PET-like detector system intended to track particles in granular assemblies (Open Access)--颗粒学报PARTICUOLOGY

Oppotsch, J., Athanassiadis, A., Fritsch, M., Heinsius, F.-H., Held, T., Hilse, N., . . . Wiedner, U. (2024). A simulation study for a cost-effective PET-like detector system intended to track particles in granular assemblies. Particuology, 84, 117-125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.partic.2023.03.005

A simulation study for a cost-effective PET-like detector system intended to track particles in granular assemblies (Open Access)

Josephine Oppotsch ^a *, Antonios Athanassiadis ^a, Miriam Fritsch^a, Fritz-Herbert Heinsius ^a, Thomas Held ^a, Nikoline Hilse ^b, Viktor Scherer ^b, Matthias Steinke ^a, Ulrich Wiedner ^a

a Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Institut für Experimentalphysik I, 44801 Bochum, Germany
b Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Lehrstuhl für Energieanlagen und Energieprozesstechnik, 44801 Bochum, Germany

10.1016/j.partic.2023.03.005

Volume 84, January 2024, Pages 117-125

Received 3 November 2022, Revised 1 February 2023, Accepted 3 March 2023, Available online 28 March 2023, Version of Record 6 April 2023.

E-mail: joppotsch@ep1.rub.de

Highlights

• Reduced costs of positron emission particle tracking by using plastic scintillators.

• 4-sided detector enables better solid angle coverage resulting in a higher event rate.

• Geant4 simulations predict spatial resolution in the low millimeter range.

• Reconstruction efficiency of 1.4% is achievable for a generic grate system.

Abstract

Since many industrial applications rely on the processing of densely packed and moving granular material, obtaining bulk internal information on the particle movement inside the reactors is of great importance. Such information can be delivered by Positron Emission Particle Tracking (PEPT). By marking pellets with a positron-emitting radioisotope, the position of these tracer particles can be determined via the time-of-flight differences of the emitted gamma-ray pairs. The current paper proposes a PET-like detector system based on cost-effective organic plastic scintillators instead of the more common but expensive inorganic scintillators. This system is currently under construction and was tested for its resolution and efficiency in this simulation study. Using Monte Carlo simulations and the software toolkit Geant4, three different geometries (an empty glass box, a generic grate system, and a cubic box of 1 m3 completely filled with pellets) were investigated, leading to a spatial resolution in the millimeter range and an efficiency, defined as the ratio of reconstructed decay locations to simulated decays, of 2.7%, 1.4%, and 0.3%.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Positron emission particle tracking; Geant4; Monte Carlo method; Time-of-flight; Plastic scintillators; Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs)

文章导读