Further study of Boron-10 loaded liquid scintillators for detection of fast and thermal neutrons

Boron-10 loaded liquid scintillators were studied in order to improve n/γ separation. Pulse shape discrimination (PSD) was done by means of a zero-crossing (ZC) method to distinguish between γ-rays and fast/slow neutrons. A significant progress was achieved for BC523A2 and EJ339A2 loaded with reduced amount of 10 B (2% and 2.5%, respectively), as compared to the results obtained earlier with BC523A loaded with 5% of 10 B. The improvement was probably caused by the reduction of 10 B content, as indicated in the latter study. A 10 B loaded scintillator EJ309B5 based on a non-flammable liquid was also studied, showing the best separation of thermal neutron capture events from fast neutrons, γ-rays and noise.