Developments in PET and PEPT at Birmingham

D. J. Parker, X. Fan, M. N. Hausard, A. Ingram, T. W. Leadbeater, Z. Yang

University of Birmingham Positron Imaging Centre, School of Physics and Astronomy,

University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK, Email: d.j.parker@bham.ac.uk

ABSTRACT

For over 20 years the University of Birmingham has been using positron emitting radioactive tracers to study engineering processes. The imaging technique of positron emission tomography (PET), widely used for medical applications, has been adapted for these studies and the complementary technique of positron emission particle tracking (PEPT) has been developed.

The radioisotopes are produced using the Birmingham MC40 cyclotron and a variety of techniques are employed to produce suitable tracers in a wide range of forms.

Detectors originally designed for medical use have been modified for engineering applications allowing measurements to be made on real process equipment, at laboratory or pilot plant scale. This paper will briefly review the capability of the techniques and introduce a few of the many processes to which they have been applied.

Keywords PET, PEPT, radioactive tracers