Comparison of phosphor screen autoradiography and micro-pattern gas detector based autoradiography for the porosity of altered rocks

C Delayre; J Sammaljärvi; S Billon; E Muuri; P Sardini; M Siitari-Kauppi

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-65791-7

Comparison of phosphor screen autoradiography and micro-pattern gas detector based autoradiography for the porosity of altered rocks

Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 11;10(1):9455. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-65791-7.

Authors

C Delayre¹, J Sammaljärvi², S Billon³, E Muuri², P Sardini¹, M Siitari-Kauppi⁴

Affiliations

¹ Université de Poitiers, UMR CNRS 7285 IC2MP / HYDRASA, rue Michel Brunet, 86022, Poitiers Cedex, France.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Helsinki, 00014, Helsinki, Finland.
³ ERM company, 4 rue Carol Heitz, 86000, Poitiers, France.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Helsinki, 00014, Helsinki, Finland. marja.siitari-kauppi@helsinki.fi.

Abstract

This study aims to further develop the ¹⁴C-PMMA porosity calculation method with a novel autoradiography technique, the Micro-pattern gas detector autoradiography (MPGDA). In this study, the MPGDA is compared with phosphor screen autoradiography (SPA). A set of rock samples from Martinique Island exhibiting a large range of connected porosities was used to validate the MPGDA method. Calculated porosities were found to be in agreement with ones from the SPA and the triple-weight method (TW). The filmless nature of MPGDA as well as straightforward determination of C-14 radioactivity from the source rock makes the porosity calculation less uncertain. The real-time visualization of radioactivity from C-14 beta emissions by MPGDA is a noticeable improvement in comparison to SPA.