Processing of materials and waste streams by electron and ion beams

Summary form only given. The use of electron beams on an industrial scale is well-established. Some 700 accelerators with electron energies ranging from 0.12 to 16 MeV are producing a wide range of products (none of which are radioactive) based largely on polymer crosslinking, sterilization of biomedical supplies and curing of coatings. Of the three categories, only the last involves major energy savings. The main benefits associated with the other two categories are product properties not readily obtained by competitive methods. When compared with canning and refrigeration, radiation preservation of food (as yet to be adopted on a wide scale), offers prospects of enormous energy savings. Radiation treatment of sewage sludge and waste water have had some minor triumphs. Simultaneous removal of NO/sub x/ and SO/sub x/ from flue gases by electron irradiation has been demonstrated; the potential market for powerful accelerators required for this field is many hundreds. A wide range of environmental problems ranging from organic chlorides in drinking water to military wastes (biological, nuclear and chemical) are the subject of research programs based on electron processing. Attention is also directed to the recent development of several ingenious products based on high energy ion beams (>10 MeV/nucleon) including "smart" porous membranes and organic nonlinear optical devices.