Investigation of Environmental Radioactivity in the Building Materials in Arak City

Subject Areas : environmental management

Reza Pourimani ¹ , vahid Heidari ²

1 - - Associate Professor , Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Arak University,Arak, Iran
2 - MSc of Nuclear Physics, Arak University, Arak, Iran.* (Corresponding Author)

Received: 2015-06-30 Accepted : 2015-10-10 Published : 2017-08-23

Keywords: Specific activity, HPGe detector, Building material, Environmental radioactivity,

Abstract :

Background and Objective: Human beings are always exposed to ionizing radiation. One of the main sources of this radiation is the nuclear radiation related to the particular radioactive nuclei present in water, soil, rock, and construction materials. The ionizing radiation is harmful to living organisms, causing various diseases and sometimes genetic abnormalities. Therefore, study of radiation from building materials is of great importance. Method: In this study, 18 samples were collected from building materials in Arak city. Activity of natural radionuclides were determined using gamma ray spectrometry method using high purity germanium detector (HPGe) model GCD30195BSI with 30% relative efficiency. Radium equivalent, internal and external hazard indices, indoor and outdoor annual effective dose rates, and absorbed dose rate were also calculated for all of samples. Findings: The specific activity concentrations of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K in these samples were calculated and varied from <0.32 to 143.50±1.44, < 0.86 to 175.95±2.01 and <2.12 to 1021.60±7.29 in Bq/kg respectively. The absorbed dose rate for collected samples varied from 20.21 to 220.61in nGy/h. The indoor and outdoor annual effective dose rates varied from 0.1 to 1.08 and 0.02 to .27 in mSv/y unit respectively. Internal and external hazard indices in the collected samples varied from 0.01 to 1.61 and 0.004 to 1.30 respectively. Conclusion: Acordingto the measurments, the minimum and maximum radium equivalent activities of <1.73 479.88±3/42 Bq/kg were obtained in Stucco (Code: GSS) and Qorveh Pumice (Code: PMQ) samples, respectively. The maximum permissible specific activity for radium equivalent is 370Bq/kg, which was only exceeded by PMQ sample. The results indicated that most of the materials used for construction are not hazardous to the the residents.

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