An anti-terrorist device to prevent potentially radioactive materials from being smuggled into the country, is being developed thanks to a £50,000 investment from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts); an organisation aiming to support innovators.
Material scientist and former mechanical engineer, Jeff Boardman, from Daresbury, Cheshire, has invented a low-cost, easily operated radiation sensor that could be fitted to airport archway metal detectors to screen for materials which could poison food chains, pollute water supplies or be turned into dirty bombs. The technology could also be used at ports and other key locations, such as government buildings, as well as being fitted to military vehicles to warn crews of radioactive areas.
Jeff said: “Here is an important new weapon to counter terrorism; it will be the first time a simple, accurate and robust radiation detector has been available on the scale necessary to improve homeland security.”
Some 20,000 magnetic detection arches monitor passengers and baggage at airports across Europe. Currently, these machines can detect only metal because no practical radiation sensor is available, it is claimed. Jeff’s solution is a sensor to pick up low intensity radiation emitted by illegal substances, such as radioactive cobalt, which can be used to make ‘dirty bombs’, and radioactive strontium and caesium, which could pollute water supplies or poison the food chain.
Cheaper, larger and longer lasting than anything possible with existing silicon and germanium technologies, it is claimed, Jeff’s radiation detector does not improve on current equipment; it makes it redundant, he claims.
With an ambition to see the first product on the market by summer 2005, Jeff says his main hurdle will be the disbelief within the scientific community that such a breakthrough could have come from a mechanical engineer.
The invention centres around a flame-spraying technique. Jeff is now working at Cheshire’s Daresbury Laboratory to develop his ideas. The idea came to Jeff while working as an independent researcher on another invention, producing electrical heating elements by flame spraying. As his concept took shape, he turned his attention to using semi-conductive oxides to make devices which would generate electrical energy from nuclear or other forms of radiation. He says: “Oddly, it seemed the logical next step; to move from toasters and kettles to radiation sensors to foil terrorism!”
But in a world before 9/11, the work was viewed by investors as too ‘blue sky’ and Jeff was forced to rely on the generosity and loyalty of friends and family to finance his work. Then, in 2001, the concept won Jeff the Manchester University-Campus Ventures New Business Idea and his appearance in the finals prompted nationwide interest. The Atmos radiation detection technology can also be used to produce large area, simple robust Direct Neutron Detectors, which vary from existing neutron detection techniques in that they don’t depend on indirect detection-measurement. Trials of the less costly Atmos-created Direct Neutron Detectors are taking place at the Nuclear ILL Institute at Grenoble in the hope that future neutron detectors will be used to monitor radiation in the engine rooms of nuclear subs, ensure the reprocessing of nuclear fuels and even monitor possible radiation leakage from decommissioned nuclear power stations.
Jeff adds: “The exciting thing is the potential for this technology across a range of applications from security and the environment to energy production.”
