Hydrogen determination in coal samples by the recoil proton method

A procedure has been developed to use the recoiled protons produced in neut ron-proton scattering process for fast, nondestructive determination of the hydrogen contents of coal samples. Samples from Hungary, Poland and Russia have been bombarded with 2.85 MeV neutrons from a small home-made neutron generator and the recoiled protons detected by a simple surface barrier det ector. To convert proton counts into hydrogen content, a calibration proced ure was established for the method using prepared standards of known hydrog en content and range for 2.85 MeV protons. Exploratory results obtained by this method compare favourably with those obtained by the neutron reflectio n method.