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Particle accelerators first caught the imagination of the public thanks to headlines around CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and scientists’ search for the so-called ‘god particle’. However, those that work in the sector understand that the capabilities of particle accelerators are much wider and far-reaching. 

 Today, there are almost 40,000 particle accelerators around the world being used for industrial applications in sectors such as medicine, security, energy and environment. Engineers and technicians play a critical role in every aspect of these programmes, from the accelerator design engineering through to integration and installation, commissioning of new systems, operational organisation and control and also the overall project management.

 

“The importance of accelerator utilisation in industry cannot – and must not­ – be underestimated,”
Peter McIntosh, Deputy Head of Accelerator Science and Technology Centre (ASTeC) at Daresbury Laboratory.





Recent analysis has shown that more and more accelerators are being introduced into each of the various application sectors, which is growing year-on-year. In trying to qualify the impact of such use, it is estimated that over $500bn worth of components or materials experience a particle accelerator induced process at some stage of its manufacture or implementation, highlighting a massive contribution to our economy, health and well-being.”

Peter has established a successful career for himself in this sector, rising up the ranks of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). He began his career at Daresbury Laboratory in 1987 as a trainee scientist, before moving to California in 2001 to work at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Returning to Daresbury in 2005, he currently leads the ASTeC Technical Division and is also a Professorial Fellow at Lancaster University and the Cockcroft Institute. He highlights that a wide range of engineering disciplines are used within this sector.

“Skills required typically encompass radio frequency, cryogenics, electronics, electrical, mechanical, vacuum, controls and quality assurance,” he notes.

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Industrial applications for particle accelerators
The vast majority of particle accelerators are currently being used for industrial material treatment and analysis. This includes ion implantation techniques used for electronic semiconductors, irradiation of materials to be able to modify their properties and for sterilising components, such as specialist instruments, packaging or food products.

At Daresbury, Peter and his colleagues are developing accelerator technologies that can be applied across a variety of applications. Existing programmes include a focus on security and environmental treatment applications using compact, low energy (<5MeV) electron beam accelerators.

“Accelerators can be used for environmental decontamination purposes. For example, by using particle beam irradiation during the treatment of industry generated wastewater, hazardous materials can be extracted effectively and disposed of more easily than via conventional chemical processing. Such applications can also be introduced for the treatment of hazardous flue gases in large industrial plants in order to provide more cost effective environmental hazard mitigation,” Peter notes.

“We are exploring utilisation of electron beams to deconstruct contaminated wastewater solutions in order to try and quantify the effectiveness of using such a platform for large scale wastewater treatment facilities,” he explains. “We also have even lower electron beam facilities (~200keV) on site which we are able to use for material manipulation and ink curing purposes.”

Helping to improve security
The global security industry requires robust systems that can ensure our safety and particle accelerators are being used to provide a significant arsenal of X-ray capabilities to scan people and cargo. This could be at ports and airports, border crossing points and events, or even used to secure buildings.

Daresbury engineers are currently developing new ways to implement compact X-ray sources for cargo scanning purposes, demonstrating new detection processes that will significantly reduce the physical footprint of commercial scanning systems in the field.

In the medical arena, particle accelerators are being used for everything from providing particle therapy technologies and platforms to treat various types of cancer, through to producing radioisotopes that are required to diagnose biological problems.

“At Daresbury we’re supporting UK industry in developing and demonstrating the next generation of linac-based particle therapy treatment systems,” Peter highlights.

Next gen particle accelerators
The demand from industry is to be able to access accelerator technologies which are simple, robust, compact, efficient and cheap. It is extremely difficult to provide solutions that meet all of these requirements, however this is the primary challenge facing the accelerator community, and certainly the teams at Daresbury, are highly motivated to be successful.

“It would be amazing to be able to shrink the current industrial accelerator solutions from small building-size systems to something you can realistically fit on a table-top, or even potentially inside the human body – a topic discussed at a recent IET symposium by Dr Arnd Specka, CNRS,” says Peter. “These are targets which will not only improve delivery capability, but also enable an even broader use of particle accelerators beyond the existing application areas and into future areas which have yet to be foreseen.”

Meet with industry experts
The IET’s Particle Accelerator Engineering Network is a unique group of engineers, technicians, scientists and academics working on the engineering of particle accelerators.

This October the network holds its annual event at the IET’s London home: Savoy Place. This event is a great opportunity for attendees to network with specialists from industry, academia and the national labs. The two-day event is made up of workshops and lectures, providing guests with the chance to learn about technologies being employed to advance particle accelerator performance and innovations that are contributing to international scientific projects.

Free to attend, you can find out more and register your interest at www.theiet.org/paen.