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

Abstract

The specific activities of natural and artificial radionuclides in 22 soil 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 soil specific activity ranges from 5.27733 ± 0.01534 - 18.8277 ± 0.0155 Bq/kg for Radium-226 (²²⁶Ra), 7.1355 ± 0.00248 - 38.1423 ± 0.00338 Bq/kg for Thorium-232 (²³²Th) and 93.140877±0.006196 - 392.62765±0.007421 Bq/kg for Potassium-40 (⁴⁰K), with mean values of 11.09224 ± 0.01090 Bq/kg, 21.98392 ±0.00293 Bq/kg and 227.96598± 0.00676 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 soil samples were calculated 58.513 Bq/Kg, 27.99008 nGy/h, 0.162327, 33.17704 µSv respectively.

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