Over thousand accelerators based on different principles have been constructed and used in the field of radiation chemistry and radiation processing. The progress in the accelerator technology means not only a growing number of units but also lower cost, higher dose rate, more compact size suitable to the production line, beam shaped adequately to the process, reliability and other parameters that are important in radiation processing application. Modern industrial accelerators can provide electron beams with the average power up to several hundred kW with the energy range suitable for radiation processing (0.15-15 MeV).
The basic principles of different type of accelerators have been described and major accelerators producers located mainly in USA, Japan, Russia, France and Germany have been listed. Several other countries are capable of producing accelerators, among them China and Poland, but their instruments are usually prototype constructions and used rather as pilot and R&D installations.
Although the present level of accelerators development can satisfy most commercial requirements, this field continues to expand and stimulates radiation processing activity. On the other hand, the specific demands from growing field of industrial application have strong impact on R&D in accelerator technology.