Choe YH  Seo YG

Vol. 22,  No. 2, pp. 122-131, Jun.  2016
10.7464/ksct.2016.22.2.122

Environmental soil Caesium radioisotope Minimum detection activity Ammonium molybdophosphate Gamma-ray spectrometry

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Caesium radioisotopes, 134Cs and 137Cs which come from the atmospheric nuclear tests and discharges from nuclear power plants, are very important to study artificial radioactivity. In this work, in order to lower the minimum detection activity (MDA) we investigated environmental radioactivity according to the Environment Measurement Laboratory procedure by 137Cs and 134Cs which is similar to chemical and environmental behaviors of 137Cs. The environmental soils in high mountain areas near nuclear power plant were collected, and an Ammonium Molybdophosphate (AMP) precipitation method, which showed high selectivity toward Cs+ ions, was applied to chemically extract and concentrate Caesium radioisotopes. Radioactivity was estimated by a gamma-ray spectrometry. In gamma energy spectrum, with an increasing of 40K radioactivity, it increased the MDA of 134Cs and 137Cs. Therefore, if the natural radionuclides were removed from the soil samples, the MDA of Caesium may be reduced, and the contents of 137Cs of in the environmental soils can effectively be estimated. In the standard soil sample of Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, radioactivity of 40K was removed more than 84% on average, and the MDA of 134Cs was reduced 2 times. The content of 137Cs was recovered over 84%. On the other hand, in environmental soils, AMP precipitation method showed removal ratio of 40K up to 180 times, which reduced the MDA about 5 times smaller than those of Direct method. 137Cs recovery ratio showed from 54.54% to 70.06%. When considering the MDA and recovery ratio, AMP precipitation method is effective for detection of Caesium radioisotopes in low concentration.