Benefits of Accelerators

Broader Benefits of Accelerators

Over 5 million cancer patients and about $500B of goods are treated each year with particle accelerators [1,2,3]. ARDAP-sponsored R&D and Production activities will favorably impact more than Office of Science missions. Over 42,000 accelerator systems are used worldwide with roughly 65% being used in industry, 30% for medical uses, and 5% used for basic research [4]. There are over 1,000 new accelerators being sold every year, with an annual market more than $2B [5].

Current industrial applications of accelerators include ion implantation, electron beam processing, electron beam irradiation, ion beam analysis, and non-destructive testing. Medical applications include cancer therapy and radioisotope production. National security applications include cargo inspection and special nuclear material detection from Bremsstrahlung radiation, nuclear resonance fluorescence, and neutron generation.

Future applications include energy and environmental uses such as treating potable and wastewater; removing pollutants from stack gases; increasing the energy efficiency of industrial material processing; remediating water-borne and soil-borne contaminants; and replacing radioactive sources in sterilization applications. Sustained R&D to lower the cost and increase the reliability of accelerator technology will open the possibility of broader use of accelerators in energy and environmental applications.

[1] E. Zubizarreta, J. Van Dyk, Y. Lievens, Clinical Oncology, 29(2), p. 84-92, (2017).
[2] M. Florio, A. Bastianin, P. Castelnovo, NIM A, 909 21-26 (2018).
[3] Industrial Radiation with Electron Beams and X-rays, published by the IIA, (2011).
[4] A.P. Chernyaev, S. M. Varzar, Phys. At. Nucl. 77 (10), p. 1203-15 (2014).
[5] R. Hamm, M. Hamm, Industrial Accelerators and their Applications, World Scientific, (2012)