Measurment of Ra-226, Th-232, K-40, Cs-137 and Rn-222 concentrations and estimating of people annual effective dose in the vicinity of hot springs of Kerman province

Abstract

Natural radioactive materials are the most important radiation sources of human which exist in all over the world and because of their ionizing properties and harmful effects on the human health, investigating of their radioactivity is important. One of the most important sources of natural radiation of human is radon-222 gas, that inhalation and decay of this gas to its products can cause lung cancer. Therefore, the aim of this study was to measure Rn-222 gas concentration in water samples as well as radionuclides concentrations of Ra-226, Th-232, K-40 and Cs-137 in collected sediment samples from various hot springs and determination of received annual effective dose in vicinity of hot springs in Kerman province. Materials and Methods: The concentration of radon gas in water samples assossiated with 16 hot springs was measured and was used from the RAD-7 detector for this purpose. As well as 13 sediment samples were collected from different hot springs and radionuclides concentrations of Ra-226, Th-232, K-40 and Cs-137 in these samples were measured using HPGe detector. The annual effective dose of hot springs were determined in order to evaluate the radiation hazards due to these radioactive materials. The data were analyzed by SPSS-23 statistical software Results: The minimum and maximum amounts of Rn-222 gas concentration in the water samples were measured as 0.158 and 56.100 in Bql-1, respectively. The annual effective dose amounts due to inhalation of radon gas were calculated between 0.000498 to 0.176916 in mSvy-1. The concentrations of Ra-226, Th-232 and K-40 in measured sediment samples, varied from 21.01 to 193.16, 16.84 to 245.92 and 90.13 to 667.81 in Bqkg-1 ,respectively, and Cs-137 concentration amount in sediment samples was between “lower than Minimum Detectable Activity” (<MDA) of detector to 5.81 Bqkg-1. Also, the minimum and maximum values of annual effective doses of sediment samples were determined as 0.17 and 1.48 in mSvy-1, respectively.