Adjustment of a PET Scanner for PEPT

Positron emission particle tracking (PEPT) is a technique in which a single radioactive tracer particle can be accurately tracked as it moves. A limitation of PET is that in order to reconstruct a tomographic image it is necessary to acquire a large volume of data (millions of events), so it is difficult to study rapidly changing systems. By considering this fact, PEPT is a very fast process compared with PET. In PEPT detecting both photons defines a line and the annihilation is assumed to have occurred somewhere along this line. The location of the tracer can be determined to within a few mm from coincident detection of a small number of pairs of back-to-back gamma rays and using triangulation. This can be achieved many times per second and the track of a moving particle can be reliably followed. This technique was invented at the University of Birmingham [1]. The attempt in PEPT is not to form an image of the tracer particle but simply to determine its location with time. If this tracer is followed for a long enough period within a closed, circulating system it explores all possible types of motion. The application of PEPT to industrial process systems carried out at the University of Birmingham is categorized in two subjects: the behaviour of granular materials and viscous fluids. Granular materials are processed in industry for example in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, ceramics, food, polymers and PEPT has been used in a number of ways to study the behaviour of these systems [2]. PEPT allows the possibility of tracking a single particle within the bed [3]. Also PEPT has been used for studying systems such as: fluid flow, viscous fluids in mixers [4], using a neutrally-buoyant tracer particle [5].

Authors:

• Alireza Sadrmomtaz

Keywords:

• PET
• BGO
• Particle Tracking
• ECAT 931
• List mode
• PEPT.

References:

[1] Parker D. J,Broadent C.J, Fowles P, Hawkesworth M. R & McNeil P .A,
Positron emission particle Tracking-a technique for studying flow within
engineering equipment, Nuclear Instruments &Methods In Physics
Research,A 326(1993)592-607.
[2] Parker D.J, Hawkesworth M.R, Broadbent C.J, Fowles P, Fryer T.D &
McNeil P.A Industrial positron-based imaging: principles and
applications Nuclear instrument & methods in physics research,
A348(1994)583-592.
[3] Stein M, Ding Y.L, Seville J.P.K & Parker D.J, Solids Motion In
Bubbling Gas Fluidised Beds, Chemical Engineering Science, 55 (2000)
5291-5300.
[4] Bakalis, S, Fryer, PJ. Parker, DJ. 2004. Measuring velocity distributions
of viscous fluids using positron emission particle tracking (pept). AIChE
Journal 50(7):1606-13.
[5] Fairhurst PG, Barigou M, Fryer PJ, Pain JP, Parker DJ, Using positron
emission particle tracking(PEPT) to study nearly neutrally buoyant
particles in high solid fration pipe flow, international journal of
multiphase flow, Volume27,Issue 11, novemember2001.pp 1881-1901
[6] Hawkesworth M.R, Odwyer M.A, Walker J, Fowles P, Heritage J,
Stewart P.A.E, Witcomb R.C, Bateman J.E, Connolly J.F & Stephenson
R,A Positron Camera For Industrial Application, Nuclear Instruments
&Methods In Physics Research,A253(1986)145-157.
[7] Parker D.J, Forster R.N, Fowles P and Takhar.P.S. Positron Emission
Particle Tracking Using the New Birmingham Positron camera, Nuclear
Instruments & methods in physics research A 477(2002)540-545.
[8] Turkington T.G, Introduction to PET Instrumentation, The Journal of
Nuclear Medicine Technology,Vo l29, No.1 (2001) 4-11.
[9] Parker D.J,Forster R.N,Fowles.P & Takhar P.S, Positron emission
particle tracking using the new Birmingham positron camera,Nuclear
Instruments & methods in physics research A 477(2002)540-545.
[10] Forster R.N, Seville J.P.K, Parker D.J & Ding Y, Tracking Single
Particles in Process Equipment or Probing Processes Using Positrons,
KONA, No18 (2000)139-148
[11] Sadrmomtaz A.R, Parker D.J and Byars L G, 2007, Modification of a
Medical PET Scanner for PEPT studies, Nuclear Instruments and
Methods in Physics Research A, 573, 91-94.