'Cat's-eye' camera can monitor fuel burn-up in nuclear reactors

A portable camera based on the function of a cat’s eye, which can create images of the radiation emitted by a nuclear reactor from outside the core, has been developed by researchers in the UK.

The camera, which can image high-intensity “fast-neutrons” and gamma-rays simultaneously, could monitor the burn-up of fuel in nuclear power plants, to ensure they are operating efficiently. It could also allow clean-up crews to remotely detect the source and location of radiation within a reactor, in the event of a nuclear disaster like that at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011.

The camera, which was developed at Lancaster University by research student Jonathan Beaumont and Malcolm Joyce, a professor of nuclear engineering, was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Conventional nuclear reactor detectors, which are installed inside the core itself and are therefore subject to extremely harsh conditions, do not tend to survive for the lifetime of a power plant. But the devices can be difficult to reach in order to check or replace, according to Joyce. “You would typically have to switch off the reactor in order to gain access to the detectors,” he said.