Recycled plastic bottles produce scintillators

Researchers at the Japan Institute of Radiological Medicine (Chiba Prefecture), Nakamura Hideki, and others published an article on the 19th edition of the "Journal of the Royal Society" online edition, saying that the core components of radiation detection devices have been made from plastic raw materials used to produce ordinary plastic bottles." "Scintillator" and successfully performed a high-precision test.

Radiation detection is the process by which a scintillator emits light after being irradiated, and its light is captured by a sensor called a photomultiplier tube. Because of the low price of plastics used in ordinary plastic bottles, this result is expected to reduce the price of a series of radiation detection equipment including positron emission computed tomography (PET) technology commonly used in cancer diagnosis.

The research team conducted experiments on various types of plastic products in daily life under radiation and found that the plastic bottle slices can detect trace amounts of radiation. When the researchers made their main component “polyethylene terephthalate” into a sheet with a thickness of 5 mm, the sensitivity was greatly improved.

Nakamura said: “We hope to use recycled plastic bottles to produce scintillators and let the latest medical technologies enter daily life.