NAUSICAA 2IC

The NAUSICAA 2IC system is designed to quantify the beta activity in air or gas streams, due to the presence of tritium or other noble gases, while compensating for the gamma background.

NAUSICAA 2IC can be used in activities involving air sampling from rooms, stacks, hoods, or other effluent passages, process piping, glove boxes, and similar.
NAUSICAA 2IC is composed of:

two identical, cylindrical, 10 litres, stainless-steel ion chambers
a pneumatic sampling system
an electrometer to amplify and manage the (typically very weak) ionisation current
a local control unit with display and software

The air to be monitored is sampled inside the upper chamber, while the lower one is sealed and filled with clean air (reference gas). The ionization occurring in the upper chamber is due to both environmental gamma background and beta contamination of the sampled air, whereas inside the lower chambers only gamma background is detected. The two chambers are provided with an opposite-polarity HV. This way, the resulting output current is actually the difference of the two single outputs, i.e. the net beta contamination of the sampled air, expressed in activity concentration.
An accessory equipment for filtering and drying the sampled air helps limiting as much as possible any spurious signals.

Main features:

• Extremely sensitive detector of noble gas interaction
• Twin ionisation chambers
• Powerful and user-friendly interface
• Rugged equipment
• Easy access to serviceable components
• Active volume of each chamber: 10 l
• Local visualization of acquired data and statuses
• Connectable to a host PC through RS485 or Ethernet connection