New Delhi (The Hawk): CSIR- Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute (AMPRI) has converted red mud into X-ray shielding tiles in a green and economically viable manner through a ceramic route by adding a certain weight percentage of high Z material and binder with it. The 12 mm thick tiles possess an attenuation equal to 2.1 mm lead at 100 kV. Moreover, the developed tile has a flexural strength of 34 N/mm2 and a breaking strength of 3369 N. These tiles can be used to build radiation shielding structures in diagnostic X-rays, CT scanner rooms, Cath labs, bone mineral density, dental X-rays, etc., instead of the toxic lead sheet to protect the public from radiation hazards.
Today, during the Directors’ conference held at Palampur, DG, CSIR and Secretary DSIR, Govt. of India, Dr N.Kalaiselvi has released the first flyer of the brochure detailing the success story of the topic, starting from fundamental, to applied, to commercialization to M/S Prism Johnson, and deployment of the technology.
The know-how for the fabrication of “Lead-Free X-ray Shielding Tiles” was transferred to M/S Prism Johnson Ltd., on 10/06/2019 at CSIR, New Delhi. CSIR-AMPRI and M/s Prism Johnson Ltd., have worked together and upscale this technology from the lab to the industry level, and joint-free X-ray shielding tiles (30x30x1.2 cm3) were made on a pilot scale on 14/04/2022. The developed tiles are tested and approved by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) of India. The product is commercialized and the first instalment has been initiated at INS Kattabomman, Tamilnadu.
Red Mud is the waste generated in the Bayer process of alumina production from bauxite. It is also known as bauxite residue. Red Mud is defined as a “High Volume Low Effect Waste”. Nearly 1 to 1.5 tonnes of RM is being generated while producing one tonne of alumina from the bauxite ore through the Bayer process. It is considered to be toxic due to its extreme alkalinity and heavy element leaching. Annually about 175 million tonnes of red mud have been generated globally and stored in a specially designed clay-lined pond. Among that India is producing nearly 9 million tonnes of red mud every year. The clay-lined ponds often broke out and pollute soil, groundwater, and air and become fatal for both humans and wildlife.
Red mud is one of the underutilized industrial wastes and getting accumulated over the years due to an increase in alumina production as well as inadequate technologies for its large-scale utilization. Although the scientific community has patented more than 700 applications of red mud, very few of them have reached industries due to high cost, low public acceptance, environmental issues, and limited market. Noteworthy, only 3-4% of red mud has been utilized by the industries to produce cement, bricks, source of iron ore etc., (i.e. 1-1.5 million tonnes (Mt) for cement production, 0.2–1.2 Mt for iron production and 0.5 -1.0 Mtfor building materials and 0.3 Mt for making pigments, catalyst, ceramics, etc.).The beneficial utilization of red mud is becoming a global issue. The red mud contains 30 – 55% of Fe2O3, which is suitable for attenuating high-energy ionizing radiations like X- and gamma rays.

CSIR- Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute (AMPRI) has converted red mud into X-ray shielding tiles in a green and economically viable manner through a ceramic route by adding a certain weight percentage of high Z material and binder with it. 

Advanced Materials & Processes Research Institute, Bhopal Converts Red Mud Into X-Ray Shielding Tiles

New York: For patients dealing with lingering respiratory symptoms from the coronavirus, a simple chest X-ray can now reveal its impact on the lungs.
The two-dimensional (2D) scans simply can't distinguish compromised lung function and a more expensive CT scan is necessary.
In a new study, researchers at the University of Iowa have developed what is called a contrastive learning model.
This model "learns" from composite 2D images constructed from 3D CT images to detect compromised lung function in long-Covid patients.
Another technique, called transfer learning, then conveys lung diagnostic information from a CT scan to a chest X-ray, thus allowing chest X-ray equipment to detect abnormalities the same as if those patients had used a CT scan. "The new element to the model is taking information from 3D CT scans showing lung volume and transferring that information to a model that will show these same characteristics in 2D images," said Ching-Long Lin, Edward M. Mielnik and Samuel R. Harding from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering at Iowa. "Clinicians would be able to use chest X-rays to detect these outcomes. That's the bigger perspective," they said in a paper published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology.
Small airways disease affects a network of more than 10,000 tubes at the nexus in the lung where oxygenated air mixes with blood to be carried throughout the body.
People with small airways disease have many of these vessels constricted, thus limiting the oxygen-blood exchange in the lungs, and impeding breathing overall.
Lin and his team collected data points at two intervals in the CT lung scans -- when the patient inhaled and when the patient exhaled.
The researchers compared their results with a control group that had not contracted the virus as they created the contrastive learning model.
"Our models successfully identified decreased lung function from long-Covid patients compared to those who had not gotten the virus," said Lin. Lin's team advanced the model so it could separate patients with small airways disease from those with more advanced complications, such as emphysema.
"The study demonstrated in an independent way that patients with post-Covid have two types of lung injuries (small airway disease and lung parenchyma fibrosis/inflammation) that are persistent after having recovered from their initial SARS CoV-2 infection," added Alejandro Comellas, a clinical professor of internal medicine-pulmonary, critical care, and occupational medicine. —IANS

For patients dealing with lingering respiratory symptoms from the coronavirus, a simple chest X-ray can now reveal its impact on the lungs.

Researchers Detect Long-Covid's Impact Via Simple Chest X-Rays

Hamburg: A pollen particle revealing the nanofoam within, or a diatom with the various geometric features inside clearly visible: Using high-energy X-rays from DESY's PETRA III synchrotron light source, a team lead by CFEL scientists Saa Bajt and Henry Chapman was able to photograph these structures without destroying them. Their new method produces high-resolution X-ray photographs of dried biological material that has not been frozen, coated, or otherwise altered--all with little to no sample damage. This technology, which is also used for airport baggage scanning, may provide nanometre-resolution photographs of the substance. The particular technology permits imaging to be conducted at less than 1% of the specimen's X-ray damage threshold by using high energy X-rays that are sharply focused using a set of innovative diffractive lenses. The results, which reveal this method as a promising tool for brighter next-generation light sources such as the planned upgrade project PETRA IV, have been published in the journal Light: Science &amp; Applications. X-ray light interacts with biological material in a variety of ways, mostly depending on the energy and intensity of the light. At the same time, radiation damage, such as small structural changes up to complete degradation of the sample, is the limiting factor during X-ray imaging of biological samples. At low energies, the X-rays are primarily absorbed by the atoms in the sample, whose electrons take on the energy, causing them to spring out of the atoms and cause damage to the sample. Images using these low-energy X-rays thus map out the sample's absorption of the radiation. At higher energies, absorption is less likely, and a process called elastic scattering occurs, where the X-ray photons "bounce" off of the matter like billiard balls without depositing their energy. Techniques such as crystallography or ptychography use this interaction. Nevertheless, absorption can still occur, meaning damage to the sample happens anyway. But there is a third interaction: Compton scattering, where the X-rays leave only a tiny amount of their energy in the target material. Compton scattering had been largely ignored as a viable method of X-ray microscopy, since it requires even higher X-ray energies where until now no suitable high-resolution lenses existed. "We used Compton scattering and we figured out that the amount of energy deposited into a sample per number of photons that you can detect is lower than using these other methods," says Chapman, who is a leading scientist at DESY, a professor at Universitat Hamburg, and inventor of different X-ray techniques at synchrotrons and free-electron lasers. The advantage of low dose in the sample posed a challenge for making suitable lenses. High-energy X-rays pass through all materials and are hardly refracted, or bent, as needed for focussing. Bajt, who is a group leader at CFEL, led efforts to develop a new kind of refractive lens, called multilayer Laue lenses. These new optics comprise over 7300 nanometre-thin alternating layers of silicon carbide and tungsten carbide that the team used to construct a holographic optical element that was thick enough to efficiently focus the X-ray beam. —ANI  Using this lens system and the PETRA III beamline P07 at DESY, the team imaged a variety of biological materials by detecting Compton scattering data as the sample was passed through the focused beam. This mode of scanning microscopy requires a very bright source - the brighter, the better - which is focused to a spot that defines the image resolution. PETRA III is one of the synchrotron radiation facilities worldwide which is bright enough at high X-ray energies to be able to acquire images this way in a reasonable time. The technique could reach its full potential with the planned PETRA IV facility. To test the method, the team used a cyanobacterium, a diatom, and even a pollen grain collected directly outside the lab ("a very local specimen," Bajt laughs) as their samples, and achieved a resolution of 70 nanometres for each. Moreover, when compared with images obtained from a similar pollen sample using a conventional coherent-scattering imaging method at an energy of 17 keV, Compton X-ray microscopy achieved a similar resolution with 2000 times lower X-ray dose. "When we re-examined the specimens using a light microscope after the experiment, we could not see any trace of where the beam had come in contact with them," she explains - meaning no radiation damage was left behind. "These results could even be better," Chapman said. "Ideally, an experiment like this would use a spherical detector, because the X-rays coming out of the sample go in every direction from the sample. In that way, it's a bit like a particle physics collision experiment, where you need to collect data in all directions." Additionally, Chapman pointed out that the image of the cyanobacteria is relatively featureless as compared to the others. However, the data indicate that at a higher brightness, such as that of the planned PETRA IV upgrade, individual organelles and even structures in three dimensions would become visible - up to a resolution of 10 nm without damage being a problem. "Really, the only limitation of this technique was not the nature of the technique itself but rather the source, namely its brightness," says Bajt. With a brighter source, the method could then be used for imaging whole unsectioned cells or tissue, complementing cryo-electron microscopy and super-resolution optical microscopy, or for tracking nanoparticles within a cell, such as for directly observing drug delivery. The characteristics of Compton scattering makes this method ideal for non-biological uses as well, such as examining the mechanics of battery charging and discharging. "There hasn't been anything like this technique in the literature yet," said Bajt, "so there is much to explore going forward." —ANI

 A pollen particle revealing the nanofoam within, or a diatom with the various geometric features inside clearly visible

Researchers Imaged Biological Specimens With X-Rays Without Damage

Tokyo: After Chandrayaan-3's success, Japan's space agency is set to launch a lander and a X-ray mission on the lunar surface on Monday.  The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) aims to achieve a lightweight probe system on a small scale and use the pinpoint landing technology necessary for future lunar probes. If successful, Japan will become just the fifth country to successfully soft-land on the moon, after Russia, US, China and India. The mission will also place the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) in a satellite that will help scientists observe plasma in stars and galaxies. The mission, originally scheduled to take off on Saturday, was postponed to Monday due to bad weather. It will now launch to the Moon on JAXA's H2-A rocket from Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the JAXA Tanegashima Space Center. “The launch of the H-IIA Rocket No. 47 carrying the X-ray Spectroscopy and Imaging Satellite (XRISM) and the Small Lunar Lander Demonstration Vehicle (SLIM) was postponed to August 27, but the weather is expected to worsen,” JAXA said in a statement. “We will reassess whether the launch on August 28 will be possible or not, depending on the weather conditions from tomorrow onwards,” it added. SLIM, also known as "Moon Sniper" in Japanese, is expected to arrive in lunar orbit 3 to 4 months after launch. —IANS

 After Chandrayaan-3's success, Japan's space agency is set to launch a lander and a X-ray 

Japan's Lunar Lander, X-Ray Mission To Launch On Monday

Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) [India]: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite on the very first day of the New Year, in continuation of its stellar space odyssey from the previous year. The satellite that was launched from Sriharikota spaceport on Monday at 9.10 am, as scheduled, among others, would offer insights into space-based polarisation measurements of X-ray emission from various celestial sources.
ISRO's PSLV-C58 Mission is to launch XPOSAT Satellite into an Eastward low inclination orbit. After injection of XPOSAT, the PS4 stage will be re-started twice to reduce the orbit into 350 km circular orbit to maintain in 3-axis stabilized mode for Orbital Platform (OP) experiments. The PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3 (POEM-3) experiment will be executed meeting the objective of 10 identified payloads, supplied by ISRO and IN-SPACe.  The XPOSat (X-ray Polarimeter Satellite) is India's first dedicated polarimetry mission to study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions. According to ISRO The XPOSAT satellite has two payloads: POLIX: This will measure the polarimetry parameters (degree and angle of polarization) in medium X-ray energy range of 8-30 keV photons of astronomical origin. The payload is being developed by Ramam Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore in collaboration with U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC). The instrument is made of a collimator, a scatterer and four X-ray proportional counter detectors that surrounds the scatterer. The scatterer is made of low atomic mass material which causes anisotropic Thomson scattering of incoming polarised X-rays. The collimator restricts the field of view to 3 degree x 3 degree so as to have only one bright source in the field of view for most observations. POLIX is expected to observer about 40 bright astronomical sources of different categories during the planned lifetime of XPoSat mission of about 5 years. This is the first payload in the medium X-ray energy band dedicated for polarimetry measurements.  XSPECT: Will give spectroscopic information in the energy range of 0.8-15 keV. An X-ray SPECtroscopy and Timing payload onboard XPoSat, which can provide fast timing and good spectroscopic resolution in soft X-rays. Taking advantage of the long duration observations required by POLIX to measure X-ray polarization, XSPECT can provide long-term monitoring of spectral state changes in continuum emission, changes in their line flux and profile, simultaneous long term temporal monitoring of soft X-ray emission in the X-ray energy range 0.8-15 keV. An array of Swept Charge Devices (SCDs) provide an effective area &amp;gt;30 cm2 at 6 keV with energy resolution better than 200 eV at 6 keV. Passive collimators are used to reduce the background by narrowing the field of view of XSPECT. XSPECT would observe several types of sources viz X-ray pulsars, blackhole binaries, low-magnetic field neutron star (NS) in LMXBs, AGNs and Magnetars. The objective of the mission is to measure polarisation of X-rays in the energy band 8-30keV emanating from about 50 potential cosmic sources through Thomson Scattering by POLIX payload. To carry out long term spectral and temporal studies of cosmic X-ray sources in the energy band 0.8-15keV by XSPECT payload. To carry out polarisation and spectroscopic measurements of X-ray emissions from cosmic sources by POLIX and XSPECT payloads respectively in the common energy band.  The emission mechanism from various astronomical sources such as blackhole, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, pulsar wind nebulae etc. originates from complex physical processes and are challenging to understand. The exact nature of the emission from such sources still poses deeper challenges to astronomers. The polarimetry measurements add two more dimension to understanding, the degree of polarization and the angle of polarization and thus is a diagnostic tool to understand the emission processes from astronomical sources. In a stellar display of prowess, India soared to new heights in 2023 with the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of moon and the launch of Aditya-L1, India's first solar mission. The primary objective of the Chandrayaan-3, the country's first successful lunar landing mission, was to demonstrate a soft landing near the lunar south polar region and perform experiments using the instruments onboard the lander 'Vikram' and rover 'Pragyaan'. On August 23, Vikram Lander made its historic touchdown on the Moon and subsequently, the Pragyan rover was deployed to survey the uncharted lunar south pole. These milestones not only secured India's standing in the global space economy but also fueled the engines for the private space sector in India. Among other feats India now aims for are the Gaganyaan Mission, setting up 'Bharatiya Antariksha Station' by 2035, and sending the first Indian to the Moon by 2040.
—ANI

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully launched the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite on the very first day of the New Year

ISRO launches X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite, will study X Ray emission from celestial sources

New Delhi [India]: Minutes after the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) to study X-ray emission from various celestial sources was launched successfully, ISRO announced that the lift-off was normal. Addressing the scientists after the successful launch of the mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief S Somanath said the PSLV-C58 vehicle placed the satellite precisely into the intended orbit of 650 km, with a 6-degree inclination.
"From this point, the orbit of the PSLV will be reduced to a lower orbit, where the upper stage of the PSLV which is now described as POEM will carry out experiments with nine of the onboard payloads and that will take some time," Somanath added. He said the orbit is "excellent" and the distance from the targetted orbit is just 3 kms in circular orbit of 650 kms. Inclination is 0.01 degree, which is one of the excellent conditions.
Also Read: <a href="https://www.thehawk.in/posts/isro-launches-x-ray-polarimeter-satellite-will-study-x-ray-emission-from-celestial-sources" target="_self">https://www.thehawk.in/posts/isro-launches-x-ray-polarimeter-satellite-will-study-x-ray-emission-from-celestial-sources</a>&nbsp;
He also apprised that the solar panel of the launched satellite has been deployed sucessfully. The satellite that was launched from Sriharikota spaceport on Monday at 9.10 am, as scheduled, among others, would offer insights into space-based polarisation measurements of X-ray emission from various celestial sources. The objective of the mission is to measure polarisation of X-rays in the energy band 8-30keV emanating from about 50 potential cosmic sources through Thomson Scattering by POLIX payload. To carry out long term spectral and temporal studies of cosmic X-ray sources in the energy band 0.8-15keV by XSPECT payload. To carry out polarisation and spectroscopic measurements of X-ray emissions from cosmic sources by POLIX and XSPECT payloads respectively in the common energy band.  The emission mechanism from various astronomical sources such as blackhole, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, pulsar wind nebulae etc. originates from complex physical processes and are challenging to understand. The exact nature of the emission from such sources still poses deeper challenges to astronomers. The polarimetry measurements add two more dimension to understanding, the degree of polarization and the angle of polarization and thus is a diagnostic tool to understand the emission processes from astronomical sources. In a stellar display of prowess, India soared to new heights in 2023 with the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the south pole of moon and the launch of Aditya-L1, India's first solar mission. These milestones not only secured India's standing in the global space economy but also fueled the engines for the private space sector in India.  Among other feats India now aims for are the Gaganyaan Mission in 2024, setting up 'Bharatiya Antariksha Station' by 2035, and sending the first Indian to the Moon by 2040.
—ANI

Minutes after the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) to study X-ray emission from various celestial sources was launched successfully

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Tag : XRay

Advanced Materials & Processes Research Institute, Bhopal Converts Red Mud Into X-Ray Shielding Tiles

Inam Ansari

The Hawk

Tag : XRay

Advanced Materials & Processes Research Institute, Bhopal Converts Red Mud Into X-Ray Shielding Tiles

Inam Ansari

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