RE: [cdn-nucl-l] Explaining Food Irradiation

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

George,

 

I read that part about the 5 MeV -- I believe it refers to the electrons in the beam hitting the metal target which, in turn, produces the X-rays.

 

Jaro 

-----Original Message-----
From: George Stanford [mailto:gstanford@aya.yale.edu]
Sent: Sunday August 03, 2003 3:01 PM
To: Canadian Nuclear Discussion List
Subject: RE: [cdn-nucl-l] Explaining Food Irradiation

Jaro:

        That same point bothered me.  But later on in the article, they say that the x-ray energy is 5 Mev or so, which is in fact considerably higher than Cs-137 (670 kev) and Co-60 (<1.4 Mev).  I guess what they are calling "x-rays" are really bremsstrahlung (??).

                Cheers,

                        George


At 01:11 PM 8/3/2003, Franta, Jaroslav wrote:

> I find one item in the article a bit confusing: 
>   
>
> <begin quote> 
> Today, though, gamma rays are being superseded for food safety by two 
>   other kinds of radiation: electron beams (e-beams) and X-rays. .....gamma rays 
>   are useless for irradiating items like whole chickens. It turns out there is 
>   no speed at which a conventional conveyor could move to kill interior microbes 
>   without overexposing outer
>
> portions of the meat......The future of food irradiation seems to 
>   belong to e-beams and X-rays. .... X-rays 
> penetrate deeper into food. 
> <end quote> 
>
> ...if gammas don't 
>   penetrate deep enough, then X-rays certainly don't either ! 
> Gammas are definitely 
>   more penetrating than X-rays. 
> This sounds like propaganda for (from ?) electron-beam 
>   accelerator manufacturer, SureBeam Corp. ( who use e-beams to produce 
>   Brehmstrahlung X-rays, in their 
> machines).

_______________________________________________ 
cdn-nucl-l mailing list cdn-nucl-l@mailman.McMaster.CA 
http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/cdn-nucl-l