Synergic quenching effects of water and carbon tetrachloride in liquid scintillation gel samples

Although both water and carbon tetrachloride induce chemical quenching when incorporated to Insta Gel, the quenching power of carbon tetrachloride is nearly two orders of magnitude greater than that of water. This huge difference shows how different the chemical quenching mechanisms among quenchers can be. One remarkable fact of all pure β-ray nuclides is that calibration curves do not depend on the water to scintillator volume ratio or on the nature of the quencher. The fact is clearly surprising, because two tritium samples of different water to scintillator and quencher to scintillator volume ratios may have identical counting efficiencies. As we shall prove, this fact is only possible when the external quench parameter of both samples is the same. We study the synergies in quenching generated when carbon tetrachloride is added to a sample in gel phase.