Evaluation of radon related parameters in environmental samples from Jazan city, Saudi Arabia

Publication date: Available online 12 December 2017 Source:Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences Author(s): M. Abo-Elmagd, Ahmed Saleh, G. Afifi Environmental samples like soil, building materials and decorative materials are the major source of indoor radon. The contribution of these environmental materials toward indoor radon level depend upon the radium content and radon exhalation rates and can be used as a primary index for radon levels in the dwellings. Sealed cup technique was used to determine the radon exhalation rates and the effective radium content in different environmental samples collected from Jazan city, Saudi Arabia. Back diffusion is the main removal processes of radon from its sealed cup which leads to underestimate the measured parameters. To assure the quality of the measurements, the results were corrected for back diffusion effect and checked for the effect of sample mass on the measured parameters. The combined uncertainty was also calculated taking into consideration the possible sources of uncertainty. The overall weighted mean of areal exhalation rate (EA) and effective Radium content (Raeff) for soil samples collected from different 10 districts in Jazan city is 17.02 ± 2.06 Bq m−2d−1, 3.01 ± 0.37 Bq kg−1 respectively. For 20 Building materials samples, EA = 1.989 ± 1.056 Bq m−2d−1 and Raeff = 0.351 ± 0.186 Bq kg−1. Finally, for decorative materials (23 samples), EA = 1.225 ± 0.136 Bq m−2d−1 a...
Source: Journal of Radiation Research and Applied Sciences - Category: Physics Source Type: research