１．In industry

Tire／Air Plane／Paper／Dioxin／Rare metal and Uranium

It is possible that a car tire melts by through driving, especially braking. So, radiation is sometimes used in order to improve the durability of a tire.

How to use?

Rubber is composed of macromolecules, very long molecules. When they are irradiated, radicals that are easy to react are made. Next, radicals combine each other and produce structure like a mesh. This is called radiation crosslinking.
When radiation closslinking is made, molecular binding gets. That’s why we can increase the material’s heat resisting and strength.

We can also make gel by using radiation crosslinking. The mesh made by radiation can keep water. Bedsore mats are made using this technology.

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Air Planes are often said the safest vehicle. Their jet engine is inspected by radiography like an X-ray examination.

How to use?

An X-ray examination is carried out by taking pictures of the inside of our body. A radiography examination is also to take pictures of the inside of objects, but not creatures. This technology enables us to inspect a crack and to check filling rate of fuels.

Applying this technology enables us to check cargos and physical examination.

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Paper, plastic wrap and aluminum foil, which we use almost every day, must be uniform in thickness. We owe the uniformity to the thickness meter which uses radiation.

How to use?

You are likely to imagine thickness is measured by a ruler and so on, but the thickness meter is completely different.　The thickness meter is a set of an X-ray irradiator and an X-ray detector. The measurement is simple all you have to do is to irradiate the object whose thickness you want to measure, and measure the radiation dose that changes according to density or thickness.

At a paper mill, this machine can measure precisely the thickness of large amount of paper which runs at 120 k.p.h. without the break. And this machine measures chewing gum and steel sheet used for car.

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厚さ計

画像提供：ナノグレイ株式会社（http://www.nanogray.co.jp/）

Dioxin is discharged when garbage is burned, and has toxicity. We can resolve it at a high temperature but it cost too much. So the idea of using radiation, electron ray, arises.

How to use?

A way to use is to irradiate smoke containing dioxin. Nitrogen, oxygen and water contained in the smoke make radicals when they are irradiated. Then dioxin reacts with them and change into less poisonous materials.

This way doesn’t make low concentration of dioxin which is an outgrowth, and carbon dioxide, and cost us lower. So we can understand this is easy on the environment.

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Rare metal is used for a semiconductor, a car etc. Its prices are strong. We can gather it in Japan, using radiation.

How to use?

First, we mix nonwoven fabric which consists of macromoleules (polypropylene) and matter which have a function (in this case, a function is to absorb metal). When they are irradiated, radicals are made unite the matter with macrolecules like grafting. This is called radiation graft polymerization.

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