page_title: Sodern
section_title: Neutron
hierarchical_section_title: Sodern / Activity / Neutron
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: CNA CimentEnglish: CNA Cement
context_page_description: Sodern is a French company based in Limeil-Brévannes, near Paris in Ile-de-France, specialized in space instrumentation, optics and neutron analyzers.
  Its shareholders are ArianeGroup and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission.
  Sodern develops and produces instruments for space exploration missions or scientific programmes; satellite equipment; neutron generators and neutron interrogation tools.
  Since the 2000s, Sodern has participated in space exploration missions to Mars, the moons of Jupiter, Venus, Ceres, the Moon, etc. It has developed high-tech scientific instruments including the heart of the PHARAO atomic clock, which should deviate by no more than one second every 300 million years, and will verify the effects predicted by the theory of general relativity.
  Sodern is the world leader in the development and production of star trackers, instruments that allow satellites to position themselves in space, and neutron tubes.
context_section_description: In the 1980s, Sodern has developed its civil neutron activity and designed neutron generators (TN26 then GENIE36) used by radioactive waste reprocessing plants for the measurement of transuranic elements. It's also used for in situ measurements in mining and oil logging, for the control of raw materials in metallurgy, for the detection of explosives and in neutron radiography.
  In the early 1990s, a first neutron-flanged tube for the oil logging (electrical logging) was designed at the request of Schlumberger, first of an ongoing collaboration.
  In the late 1990s, a new project of neutron analyzer was launched, the Continuous Neutron Analyzer (CNA) for the analysis of cements. The principle of material analysis by neutron interrogation was then extended for a vast range of applications: coal, ores (copper, nickel, bauxite, iron), scrap and waste. In 2010, about 70 of those devices had been sold, mostly to cement makers. These CNAs are marketed by another company, PANalytical.
  Based on the same principle of analysis, Sodern designed INES, a detector of explosives for luggage at airports. This detector was developed jointly with the French Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA). It has used a technology called FNA, for Fast Neutron Activation, different from its American competitor (Science Applications International Corp.) technology, which is called TNA, for Thermal Neutron Activation. Sodern FNA detector was based on the fact that explosives often contain a large amount of oxygen and nitrogen but little carbon. A pulsed generator of neutrons then enabled it to detect such elements. The detector was able to analyze 1200 bags per hour, for a detection rate of 99.8%. It has not yet been commercialized.
  THOR (military version) and ULIS (civilian version) emerged in the 1990s. They make the detection of explosive and hazardous materials (toxic chemicals products), as illegal ones, possible in abandoned luggage and parcels, from a distance. Their small size allows them to be carried like a suitcase.
  NIPPS (Neutron Induced Prompt Photometer System) allows the non-intrusive detection of illicit and dangerous substances. It has been used by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(OPCW).
caption: Cement CNA
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