Boron nitride electron permeable windows used in electron beam water treatment

The paper presents results of experiment concerning the removal of toluene with the use of low energy electron beam. The use of low accelerating voltages was possible due to an implementation of 10 /spl mu/m thick boron nitride (BN) layer as an electron permeable window. The results concerning the removal of toluene from aqueous solutions by low energy electron beam are presented. A relatively high efficiency of the contamination decomposition (65%) was obtained for low energy electron beam. The ceramic window allows to apply an incident beam power density of about 500 W/cm/sup 2/ and the power losses in the beam are only about 10% for an accelerating voltage being as low as 100 kV. Very low absorption of electrons and outstanding thermal and mechanical properties of BN make it possible to use such windows in electron beam radiation processes in which low accelerating voltages are utilized.