Journal of Environmental Analytical Chemistry

Estimation of 232Th Concentration in Environmental Matrices by Tracking Activity of Major Daughter Products (212Bi, 212Pb and 228Ac) with Time in a Hermetically Sealed Container

Abstract

Singhal RK, Basu H, Saha S,Kumar A,Pimple MV

Concentration of 212Bi, 212Pb and 228Ac were tracked at different time intervals for 33 days in IAEA-RGTh-1 reference material having 2.89% Th and soil collected from ambient environment. In case of reference material, mean concentration of 232Th evaluated using gamma energy line of 228Ac (912 keV) and 212Bi (728 keV) shows a deviation of only 0.05%, and 5.66% respectively from the certified mean value of 232Th, whereas a large negative deviation of 29.9% was observed in the case of 212Pb (239 keV). Th-232 concentration in soil sample as evaluated using above three different gamma lines shows a variation of only 10-13%.