Nanodosemeters based on gel scintillators

The feasibility of a nanodosemeter based on a liquid scintillator cocktail of four components (ethoxylated nonylphenol, pseudocumene, water and a lipophilic mixture) is studied. The dosemeter can work in distinct gel phases, for which the radioactive substance can be confined inside aqueous nanoscale structures of different size. For water volumes ranging 0-15%, it results in a gel with micelles of 4 nm radius. For water volumes ranging 30-50%, the resulting liquid-crystal gel contains nanostructures of approximately 20 nm radius. The low-energy electron emission arising from the decay of (3)H and (55)Fe is counted in a commercial liquid-scintillation counting spectrometer for both homogeneous and gel samples. The counting efficiency gap between the two phases is used to compute the average energy deposited inside the micelle.