Measurement of nitrogen in the body using a commercial PGNAA system—phantom experiments

An industrial prompt-gamma neutron activation analysis (PGNAA) system, originally designed for the real-time elemental analyses of bulk coal on a conveyor belt, has been studied to examine the feasibility of using such a system for body composition analysis. Experiments were conducted to measure nitrogen in a simple, tissue equivalent phantom comprised of 2.7 wt% of nitrogen. The neutron source for these experiments was 365 MBq (18.38 μg) of 252Cf located within an engineered low Z moderator and it yielded a dose rate in the measurement position of 3.91 mSv/h; data were collected using a 2780 cm3 NaI(Tl) cylindrical detector with a digital signal processor and a 512 channel MCA. Source, moderator and detector geometries were unaltered from the systemʹs standard configuration, where they have been optimized for considerations such as neutron thermalization, measurement sensitivity and uniformity, background radiation and external dose minimization. Based on net counts in the 10.8 MeV PGNAA nitrogen photopeak and its escape peaks the dose dependent nitrogen count rate was 11,600 counts/mSv with an uncertainty of 3.0% after 0.32 mSv (4.9 min), 2.0% after 0.74 mSv (11.4 min) and 1.0% after 3.02 mSv (46.4 min).