Speaker
Description
PEPT Cape Town has pioneered the development of Gallium-68 based tracer particle analogues for use in positron emission particle tracking studies of granular and multiphase systems. The accuracy of the measured data relies strongly on how representative the tracer particle analogue is to the media of interest in these dynamic systems. The ability to control and manipulate the tracer fabrication methods expands the range of applications and systems suitable for investigation with PEPT. The density of the material under investigation is often a critical parameter of the system under study. Tracer production methods developed at PEPT Cape Town rely on multiple layer coatings of tracers created by radiolabelling ion exchange resin beads. The layers include the radioactive core, a density controlled region and may include an additional coating used to control the surface chemistry of the particle. The current available densities range between 1.00 and 2.85 g cm-3 with particle diameters as small as 450 microns. We report on the current state of density-modified tracer particles and illustrate the method using data from PEPT measurements on an industrial system designed to separate higher density minerals from lower density gangue.
