Use of activated products as radiotracers for the development of environmental technologies

Preserving the environment is essential for maintaining the quality of life on our planet. For this reason, efforts are being made in the world, and especially in Germany, to develop environmentally friendly and resource-saving production technologies.
This article uses two selected examples to show how activation products can be used as radiotracers for the development and optimization of such environmental technologies. The first example reports the use of Cu-64 and Zn-69 m for the investigation of heavy metal release during municipal solid waste incineration. The second one presents the use of Ar-41 for measuring the residence time distributions of gaseous phase in a reactor for the partial oxidation of hydrocarbon-containing fluids (gases, liquids, slurries) under high pressures.
Both examples show why only radionuclides obtained by neutron activation in a research reactor could solve the problems presented in this article.