Determination of 226Ra in TENORM Sample Considering Radon Leakage Correction

Abstract

Background: Phosphogypsum is material produced as a byproduct in fertilizer industry and is generally used for building materials. This material may contain enhanced radium-226 (226Ra) activity concentration compared to its natural concentration that may lead to indoor radon accumulation. Therefore, an accurate measurement method is proposed in this study to determine 226Ra activity concentration in phosphogypsum sample, considering the potential radon leakage from the sample container.Materials and Methods: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) phosphogypsum reference material was used as a sample in this study. High-purity germanium (HPGe) gamma spectrometry was used to measure the activity concentration of the 226Ra decay products, i.e., 214Bi and 214Pb. Marinelli beakers sealed with three different sealing methods were used as sample containers. Due to the potential leakage of radon from the Marinelli beaker (MB), correction to the activity concentration resulted in gamma spectrometry is needed. Therefore, the leaked fraction of radon escaped from the sample container was calculated and added to the gamma spectrometry measured values.Results and Discussion: Total activity concentration of 226Ra was determined by summing up the activity concentration from gamma spectrometry measurement and calculated concentration from radon leakage correction method. The results obtained from 214Bi peak were 723.4 ± 4.0 Bq· kg-1 in MB1 and 719.2 ± 3.5 Bq· kg-1 in MB2 that showed about 5% discrepancy compared to the certified activity. Besides, results obtained from 214Pb peak were 741.9 ± 3.6 Bq· kg-1 in MB1 and 740.1 ± 3.4 Bq· kg-1 in MB2 that showed about 2% difference compared to the certified activity measurement of 226Ra concentration activity.Conclusion: The results show that radon leakage correction was calculated with insignificant discrepancy to the certified values and provided improvement to the gamma spectrometry. Therefore, measuring 226Ra activity concentration in TENORM (technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material) sample using radon leakage correction can be concluded as a convenient and accurate method that can be easily conducted with simple calculation.