Synthesis of ZnWO4 nanoparticles and manufacturing scintillator for detecting Gama- rays

In this study, ZnWO4 nanoparticles were synthesized through co-precipitation method with sodium tungstate dehydrate (Na2WO4.2H2O) and zinc nitrate hexahydrate (Zn (NO3)2.6H2O) as starting materials. In order to optimize the conditions for obtaining smallest mean particle size, Central Composite Design (CCD) was used and three parameters of temperature, weight ratio of precursors, and pH value were studied in five levels. The obtained ZnWO4 nanoparticles were characterized by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM), powder x-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal gravimetric- differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC) and photoluminescence (PL). The results showed that optimal conditions for smallest mean nanoparticles with particle size of 37.3 6.9 nm were temperature =83 , weight ratio of precursor equal to 1.1, and pH=6. The resulting ZnWO4 nanoparticles were dry- pressed to green compact pellets with a diameter of 11mm and thickness of 1.5 nm at the compaction pressure of 500 MPa. The densification of nanoparticles compacts was carried out by a pressure less sintering at 950 for 2 hours in air atmosphere. Scintillation properties of pellets were determined by means of Gama-rays spectroscopy. The results showed that manufactured ZnWO4 pellets illustrated counting sensitivity to Cs137 and Am241 irradiation sources and couldn’t detect energy of Gama-rays emitted from this two source.