Determination of Natural and Artificial Radionuclides in Water Samples of Habigonj District, Bangladesh

Abstract

The specific activities of natural and artificial radionuclides in 8 Water samples collected from Habiganj district in Bangladesh, have been Studied and evaluated. Experimental results were obtained by using a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) Detector and the radioactive standard sources supplied by IAEA were used to determine the efficiency. The measuring time of all samples is 5000 seconds. It was found that, the water specific activity ranges from 1.4470 ± 0.00281 - 13.0836 ± 0.00335 Bq/kg for Radium-226 (²²⁶Ra), 0.0 - 14.0196 ± 0.00265 Bq/kg for Thorium-232 (²³²Th) and 0.0 - 73.4632 ± 0.006899 Bq/kg for Potassium-40 (⁴⁰K), with mean values of 5.6947 ± 0.00278 Bq/kg, 6.2259 ± 0.00177 Bq/kg and 24.6966 ± 0.00426 Bq/kg respectively. It was also found that there is no artificial radionuclide (¹³⁷Cs) in any kind of samples of Habiganj district. In order to evaluate the radiological hazard of the natural and artificial radioactivity, Radium equivalent activity (Ra_eq), gamma absorbed dose rate, the external hazard index (H_ex), annual effective dose rate for different water samples were calculated 16.25248 Bq/Kg, 7.397393 nGy/h, 0.044364, 9.072163 µSv respectively.

Keywords: Habiganj, HPGe detector; Water, Natural Radionuclides, Artificial Radionuclides, ⁴⁰K, ¹³⁷Cs, ²²⁶Ra, ²³²Th.