Effect of Thermal Neutron Irradiation on the Growth and Structure of K2SO4 Crystal

Abstract

In this work we studied the effects of K₂SO₄ crystal which is exposure to thermal neutron radiation. This crystal was  grown by slow evaporation of the aqueous solution  technique to the size (28 x 6x 6  )mm³.X-ray powder diffraction was used to identify the structures for  before and after irradiation samples. Lattice  parameter calculations revealed orthorhombic crystal system for before irradiation and monoclinic for after irradiation sample. Then we followed it by DSC which  allowed us to highlight the high temperature phase transition around T_c581.9^?Cfor before irradiation and at 670ºC for after irradiation .The difference in T_c at high temperature during heating run indicates for structural changed. Then IR study verifies the reduction in crystal symmetry, which indicates to the correlation between thermal neutron irradiation and structure of K₂SO₄.

Keywords: Thermal neutron, Isomorphism, Single crystal, Phase transition, Symmetry reduction, after irradiation.