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Abstract

Many experiments in particle physics, in particular in the field of neutrino
searches, rely on organic liquid scintillators as target and detection
material. The size of these detectors was continously growing in the last
decades, up to the kiloton scale. In several cases these detectors are located
at sites with enhanced safety requirements as underground laboratories or in
the vicinity of nuclear reactors. Therefore, there is strong demand in liquids
which are safe with respect to aspects as fire protection, human health or
environmental pollution. In particular, properties as the flash point, the
vapor pressure or the toxicity need to be significantly improved as compared to
classical solvents such as xylene or pseudocumene. We present and compare the
performance and optical properties of scintillators based on high flash point
solvents. In particular polysiloxane based scintillators are characterized by
outstanding properties in terms of safety.