OLA (on-line elemental slurry analyzer)

The OLA uses the Prompt Gamma-ray Neutron Activation Analysis technique to measure elemental concentrations in slurry streams.

A radioactive source emits neutrons which pass into the slurry stream.   Neutrons excite the nuclei of the elements which immediately decay to the ground state, emitting a series of gamma-rays.   Each element emits its own unique signature of gamma-rays.

A gamma-ray detector converts each impinging gamma-ray into an electronic pulse.   The pulses are sorted according to its energy and hence the element from which it came.   The intensity of each element’s signature is proportional to the concentration of that element in the slurry.

This technique has a number of advantages over other measurement techniques and some of these are:

1. the neutrons and gamma-rays can penetrate through many millimeters of material so the technique is non-contact.   Hence it can be used to measure streams which are not amenable to measurement with other techniques.
2. the technique can measure large particles with sizes up to many millimeters.
3. the accuracy of the technique is not affected by variations in particle size, matrix or mineralogy.