Primordial radionuclides in building materials are one of the sources of radiation hazard in dwellings made of those materials. Activity concentrations of primordial radionuclides 40K, 226Ra and 232Th have been measured in house building bricks fabricated from saline soil. Forty samples of the bricks were collected from the brick fabrication sites and brick baking kilns in and around the saline soil areas of the districts of Lahore and Faisalabad in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The technique of gamma-ray spectroscopy using an HPGe detector with a PC-based multi-channel analyser was applied for determination of activity concentrations in the brick samples. The activity mass concentrations of 40K, 226Ra and 232Th measured in the brick samples were respectively 567.7 +/- 38.3 (493-631), 28.4 +/- 3.8 (23-35), and 56.0 +/- 4.6 (46-65) Bq kg(-1). The radiological hazards of the bricks were calculated using various models given in the literature. The radium equivalent activity was less than the accepted standard criterion value of 370 Bq kg(-1) and the values of other hazard indices were also below their limit values. The radiological hazard parameters of the bricks under investigation have been compared with those from other locations of Pakistan and also from some other countries in Asia.
Granite is an igneous rock that contains natural radioactivity of primordial radionuclides. In Pakistan, granite is distributed in a vast area called the Ambela Granitic Complex (AGC) in North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Granite is a hard rock that exists in different colours and is used to decorate floors, kitchen counter tops, etc. The use of granite in a building as a decor material is a potential source of radiation dose; therefore, natural radioactivity has been measured in 20 granite samples of the AGC with an HPGe (high purity germanium) based gamma ray spectrometer. The average specific activities and their range (given in parentheses) for primordial radionuclides (40)K, (226)Ra and (232)Th were 1218 (899-1927), 659 (46-6120) and 598 (92-3214) Bq kg(-1), respectively. The measured activity concentrations were used for the assessment of hazard indices and radiation dose which were evaluated based on the permissible limits defined for these parameters. The measured specific activities and the derived quantities, hazard indices and radiation dose, have been compared with those given in the literature for these parameters.
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