Characterization of low power research reactor neutrons for the validation of k0-INAA standardization based on k0-IAEA software

•We characterized the irradiation site of Ghana Research Reactor-1 (GHARR-1) for k0-INAA application.•Both bare and Cd-ratio method were used for the characterization.•α, f and thermal, epithermal and fast neutron flux values were found to agree largely with earlier reports.•We developed an irradiation method to detect and quantify up to 32 elements in plants, rock and lake sediment matrices.•The z-score analysis showed 90% of the data points within the range of |z|<2.

Channel Bsite2 of Ghana research reactor-1 has been characterized for k0-INAA application. Cadmium ratio and bare multi-monitor were used to determine flux parameters using 0.1%Au–Al, Fe, and Zr wire as flux monitors. The parameters determined were 18.36±1.91, 0.0479±0.012, 5.12×1011±0.42×1011 ncm−2 s−1, 2.74×1010±0.14×1010 ncm−2 s−1, 7.73×1010±0.16×1010 ncm−2 s−1 and 16.75±1.58, −0.034±0.0028, 4.28×1011±1.71×1011 ncm−2 s−1, 2.55×1010±0.15×1010 ncm−2 s−1 respectively for thermal-to-epithermal flux ratio, alpha, thermal neutron, epithermal neutron and fast neutron flux using cadmium ratio and multi-monitor method accordingly. The k0-INAA performance assessment based on z  -score distributions showed most results within |z|<2|z|<2.