DEPTH PROFILING OF WOOD PRESERVATIVES WITH NEUTRON-ACTIVATION AND BETA-SPECTROSCOPY

The wood products industry is developing new preservatives with the ac tive ingredient 3-iodo-2-propynyl butylcarbamate. In this work the pos sibility of measuring the penetration profile of this compound using n eutron activation and spectroscopy of the betas emitted by I-128 in co incidence with the 0.443 MeV gamma-ray was investigated. The measureme nts performed on pieces of wood 10 mm thick and using P-32 to simulate the I-128 beta spectrum indicated that the limits of this technique a re a 3-point depth profile with 3 mm resolution.