ECE Laboratory in the Vinca institute - its basic characteristics and fundamentals of electrochemical etching on polycarbonate

This paper deals with the introductory aspects of the Electrochemical Etching Laboratory installed at the Vinca Institute in the year 2003. The main purpose of the laboratory is its field application for radon and thoron large-scale survey using passive radon/thron UFO type detectors. Since the etching techniques together with the laboratory equipment were transferred from the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, Chiba, Japan., it was necessary for both etching conditions to be confirmed and to be checked up, i.e., bulk etching speeds of chemical etching and electrochemical etching in the VINCA Electrochemical Etching Laboratry itself. Beside this initial step, other concerns were taken into consideration in this preliminary experimental phase such as the following: the measurable energy range of the polycarbonate film, background etch pit density of the film and its standard deviation and reproducibility of the response to alpha particles for different sets of etching

Soil gas mapping in the vicinity of Nikola Tesla thermo power plant disposal field

This paper presents the results of identification of natural ionizing irradiation in the vicinity of Nikola Tesla B power plant ash disposal field. The investigations have comprised the determination of natural gas (radon and thoron) activities with a passive discriminative nuclear track detector (CR 39) in the air column of the depth of 80 cm in the soil. The determination of gamma dose rate has been given as well, including the corresponding GPS coordinates of 28 measuring points

Qualitative overview of indoor radon surveys in Europe

The revised European Directive from 2013 regarding basic safety standard oblige EU Member States to establish a national action plan regarding the exposure to radon. At the same time, International Atomic Energy Agency started technical projects in order to assist countries to establish and implement national radon action. As a consequence, in recent years, in numerous countries national radon surveys were conducted and action plans established, which were not performed before. In this paper, a qualitative overview of radon surveys performed in Europe is given with a special attention to the qualitative and conceptual description of surveys, representativeness and QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control).JRC.G.10-Knowledge for Nuclear Security and Safet

Estimating the relation between radon concentrations in dwellings and schools; on the example of data from the Balkan region, South East Europe

Given its relevance as hazard to human health, today almost unanimously accepted, indoor Rn is increasingly subject to regulation with the purpose of reducing the risk. While so far, investigations were mostly focused on domestic indoor Rn, attention has been extended to working environments, as people spend good (or bad) part of their life in offices, schools, shops, factories and other workplaces. In the recently issued European Basic Safety Standards (BSS 2014) the same maximum reference levels for indoor Rn concentration, long-term mean 300 Bq/m³, were therefore set for dwellings and workplaces. Many national and regional indoor surveys exist for dwellings, but only a few for schools and kindergartens and little for other workplaces. In particular schools are given increasing attention because they are workplaces for students and teachers alike, and avoiding unnecessary risk to children is naturally seen as an especially important objective. It must be assumed that buildings on top of a ground with the same radon potential, but with different building characteristics and usage patterns, as is typically the case for dwellings and schools, have systematically different indoor Rn concentrations. Although this is well accepted, little is known about how these differences can be quantified, and what their extent is. We show on indoor Rn datasets of schools and dwellings from several regions in South-East Europe how such relations can be estimated and give results. These can be used for identifying regions in which one may decide to allocate resources preferentially for intensified surveys or mitigation or remediation activity, specifically targeted to a type of indoor environment

P estimation of radiological impact on residents due to household storage of coal used for heating in Serbia

This pa per aims to es ti mate a po ten tial ra dio log i cal risk from dif fer ent kinds of coals used for do mes tic heat ing in Ser bia, by mea sur ing the ac tiv ity con cen tra tion of radionuclides and ra don ex ha la tion rate. The ob tained ra don mass ex ha la tion rate ranges from (5.3 +/- 3.1) mu Bqkg-1s-1 to (70.3 +/- 9.4) mu Bqkg -1s-1 and was high est for lig nite type of coal. It is es ti mated that coal stored in the base ment could con trib ute up to 50 Bqm-3 of in door ra don con cen tra tion at the ground level. Ac tiv ity con cen tra tions of 226Ra, 232Th, 40K, 238U, 235U, and 210Pb in ana lysed coal sam ples agree with pre vi ously re ported con cen tra tions of coal used in Ser bia. The values of radium equivalent concentration and external hazard index indicate that the used coal does not represent a significant radiation hazard

First steps towards national radon action plan in Serbia

Radon problem has a special attention in many countries in the world and the most of them have established national radon programmes. The radon issues in Serbia have not been approached in a systematic and organized way. Currently, there are many research groups and institutions working in radon field, and it is a good basis to integrate all these activities into a comprehensive national programme to define the strategic objectives and action plan for the next few years. Also, Serbia as a candidate for membership in the EU is obliged to harmonize its legislation, including the field of radiation protection in which the radon issues has an important role. In this report, a brief history of radon research, present status and plans for the future activity on radon issues in Serbia are presented. Regarding the long-term plans, the establishment and implementation of the Radon Action Plan with the primary goal of raising awareness about the harmful effects of public exposure to radon and implementing a set of measures for its reduction. In that sense, the synergy between the national, regional and local organizations responsible for public health and radiation protection must be achieved