Radioactive isotopes are a global health hazard in nuclear fallout from both weapon detonation and disasters at power stations such as Fukushima and Chernobyl. The radioactive contamination of fallout in Scandinavia and Norway still exceeds the legal limit (3000 Bq/kg) interdicting the grazing of cattle. Hand held laboratory instruments used to detect radioactivity such as geiger counters provide a reliable way of measuring ionising radiation but these devices are not efficient or cost effective to test every item of food for example. Furthermore, these devices are not easy to embed in food packaging or clothing to provide novel solutions for which a high degree of mechanical flexibility is required, such as laboratory coats for example.
The aim of this proposal is to pioneer a new class of imperceptible, flexible and ultra-lightweight radioactivity sensors, which exploit the insulator-to-metal transition uniquely occurring in fluorinated graphene upon exposure to a radioactive source. This phenomenon was only recently discovered by the team of researchers at the University of Exeter lead by Prof S. Russo and Prof M.F. Craciun.
This project will be conducted in collaboration with Prof M. Dubois, Clermont Universite (France), as a part of a UK-France bilateral funding program.
Application deadline: 25th August 2015
Loading tweets...