  An excellent hadron to electron discrimination is a crucial aspect of
calorimeter-based experiments in astroparticle physics. Standard discrimination
techniques require full shower development and fine granularity but in space
detectors severe limitations exist due to constraints on dimensions, weight and
power consumption. A possible approach is to exploit the different neutron
yield of electromagnetic and hadronic showers. NEUCAL is a light and compact
innovative neutron detector, to be used as an auxiliary complement of
electromagnetic calorimeters. This new approach to neutron counting relies on
scintillation detectors which are sensitive to the moderation phase of the
neutron component. The NEUCAL prototype has been placed after a conventional
calorimeter and tested with high energy beams of pions and positrons. The
comparison of experimental data with a detailed Geant4 simulation and the
encouraging results obtained are presented.
