BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//CERN//INDICO//EN BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:#StudentSeminar: TRITIUM: Design\, construction and commissioning of automatic station for real time monitoring of low radiactivity levels o f tritium in water DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20190628T100000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20190628T110000Z DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260426T090718Z UID:indico-event-3800@indico.ific.uv.es DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, the design\, construction and set-up of a near real-time monitor intended to measure low levels of tritium in water is pr esented. This monitor will be installed in the Arrocampo dam in which Alma raz nuclear power plant (Cáceres\, Spain) releases cooling water\, which flows afterwards into the Tagus river\, which pro- vides drinkable water to a wide area of Spain and Portugal. The Council Directive 2013/51/Eurato m requires that the maximum level of tritium in water for human consumptio n be lower than 100 Bq/L. This level is much higher than the level due to the natural or cosmogenic component of tritium in the environment. However \, it can be easily exceeded in the cooling water of nuclear power plants in normal operation. This tritium monitor should be able to measure every 10 minutes the tritium level of water with the sensitivity required by the Council Directive (100 Bq/L). Although there is a number of techniques\, like liquid scintillator systems\, capa- ble of measuring low levels of tr itium in water\, sample collection and measurement time are not suitable f or providing in-situ and near real-time alert signals for water quality mo nitoring in rivers near nuclear power plants. Furthermore\, this technique generates chemical residues (as toluene) that should not be released in t he environment. Plastic scintillators read out by photomultiplier tubes ar e robust and clean\, and have been used in the past for this task\, but th eir detection limit\, around 10 kBq/L in a 10 minutes measurement\, is qui te higher than the required detection limit for drinkable water. Our goal is to improve the current limit of scintil- lating plastic technique by tw o orders of magnitude. To reach this goal\, a monitor consisting in scinti llating fibers read out by silicon photomultipliers has been designed. Sil icon photomultipliers have better photon de- tection efficiency than photo multiplier tubes and do not need high voltage\, which is important from th e point of view of autonomy of the monitor. A data acquisition system\, or iginally intended for positron-emission to- mography imaging\, allows the measurement of both energy and time of the signals in both ends of the fib ers\, and to implement triggers to reduce electronic and environmental bac kgrounds. Background due to both cosmic rays and environmental radioactivi ty is suppressed with the help of a lead shielding and an active cosmic ve to\, made of plastic scintillator. To avoid frequent maintenance of the m onitor\, a water purification system has been designed and implemented whi ch purifies water to the hyperpure grade of purity before providing it to the tritium detector. Detailed Geant4 simulations of the prototype have be en carried out. Be- sides the employment of this monitor in nuclear power plants\, it will be useful when commercial fusion nu- clear reactors are a vailable\, for which tritium is the main radioactive product released. Our tritium monitor is planned to be installed in Almaraz by spring 2019. Thi s project is funded by the INTERREG SUDOE program of the European Economic Community with reference SOE1/P4/E0214\, in which a consortium of six ins titu- tions from three southwestern Europe countries are involved: Spain\, Portugal and France.\n\nhttps://indico.ific.uv.es/event/3800/ LOCATION:Universe 1001-Primera-1-1-1 - Paterna. Seminario URL:https://indico.ific.uv.es/event/3800/ END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR