ANSTO to launch STAR accelerator

In the lead up to the completion of the replacement nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, the Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organisation (ANSTO) plans to announce a name for the new reactor next week, as well as launch a new Small Tandem for Applied Research (STAR) accelerator.

Development of the new reactor began with the allocation of funding in 1997 and it is expected to be fully operational by 2006.

The current reactor supplies over 70 per cent of the radioisotopes used in Australia for medical procedures, such as diagnostic imaging and radiotherapy. The AUD$330 million new reactor is expected to provide an even greater amount of radiopharmaceuticals than this, including some that are currently not available to the Australian community.

In addition, the new reactor will supply Australia with a neutron source three times that of the current reactor, enabling better analysis of the atomic structure of substances by scientists.

The $3.2 million STAR accelerator, funded collaboratively by the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE), ANSTO, the ARC and 28 individual universities, will provide researchers with state-of-the-art ion beam and accelerator mass spectrometry capabilities. Its dual functionality provides both ion beam analysis and high-throughput and high-precision accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon analysis.

Built by the Dutch company High Voltage Engineering and delivered to Australia in 2002, the STAR accelerator has met all ion beam analysis and radiocarbon accelerator mass spectrometry acceptance tests, providing high energy proton and helium beams, and radiocarbon accelerator mass spectrometry measurements with 0.35% precision.

In December last year, ANSTO constructed, tested and commissioned two additional ion beam lines for X-ray and nuclear reaction studies.

The new accelerator will provide access for Australian scientists to a radiocarbon dating facility for high-precision sample analyses related to natural materials such as lake sediments, rock-art paintings, tree-rings, ice-cores, corals, soils and air.