Assessment of Natural Radioactivity in Cements Used as Building Materials in Poland

Sylwia Lewicka (), Barbara Piotrowska, Aneta Łukaszek-Chmielewska and Tomasz Drzymała ()
Additional contact information
Sylwia Lewicka: Faculty of Safety Engineering and Civil Protection, The Main School of Fire Service, 52/54 Słowackiego Street, 01-629 Warsaw, Poland
Barbara Piotrowska: Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, 7 Konwaliowa Street, 03-194 Warsaw, Poland
Aneta Łukaszek-Chmielewska: Faculty of Safety Engineering and Civil Protection, The Main School of Fire Service, 52/54 Słowackiego Street, 01-629 Warsaw, Poland
Tomasz Drzymała: Faculty of Safety Engineering and Civil Protection, The Main School of Fire Service, 52/54 Słowackiego Street, 01-629 Warsaw, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 18, 1-26

Abstract: It has been analyzed in this article the radioactivity concentrations of 226 Ra, 232 Th, 40 K and radiological hazard parameters in different types of cements commonly used in Poland and available on the Polish market. The radiological hazard parameters are, in particular, absorbed gamma dose rate, annual effective dose, radium equivalent activity, the external hazard index, and the gamma and alpha indices. The radionuclide activities of the most important radionuclides 226 Ra, 232 Th, 40 K have been determined by gamma-ray spectrometry with the use of two kinds of spectrometers of different operational parameters. One performed also measurements on 30-day and 45-day aged samples as to verify if there is a statistically significant difference in radioactivity concentration for shorter and longer aging time. The radioactivity concentrations in the cement samples ranged from 21.7–75.7 Bq·kg −1 for 226 Ra, 12.3–47.3 Bq·kg −1 for 232 Th to 123–430 Bq·kg −1 for 40 K. The radiological parameters in cement samples were calculated as follows: mean radium equivalent activity Ra eq = 127 Bq·kg −1 , mean absorbed gamma dose rate D = 115 nGy·h −1 , mean annual effective dose E = 570 µSv·y −1 , external hazard index H ex = 0.32, internal hazard index H in = 0.51, mean activity concentration index I γ = 0.47 and mean alpha index I α = 0.28. The results were compared with the reported data from other countries and the international standard values given by European Commission (EC) and United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR 2000). Finally, thorough statistical analysis has been performed.

Keywords: cement; natural radioactivity; radiation hazard parameters; statistical analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11695/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/18/11695/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:18:p:11695-:d:916854

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().