Determination of the content of natural radionuclides in furnace slag used for the preparation of standard sources

Ionising radiation metrology for the metallurgical industry

“…Raw material was collected from a electric-arc furnace steel foundry near Madrid and after characterization was passed over a 2 mm screen, the standard size for reference soils [10,11]. Before spiking, its radioactive content was determined by gammaray spectrometry [12]. Slag was bottled in 15 polypropylene cylindrical containers (r = 3.75 cm, h = 3 cm) (Fig.…”

Preparation and characterisation of a 226 Ra spiked slag as reference material for radioactive control of steelworks

“…A detailed description of these equipments can be found in Sahagia et al (2013). The CIEMATLaboratorio de Metrología de Radiaciones Ionizantes (LMRI) equipment has also been used for the homogeneity tests that will be described in detail in Section 3.3.…”

“…The determination of the activity contents was done by high resolution gamma-ray spectrometry with HPGe detectors (Sahagia et al, 2013) from various relative efficiencies (22% to 40%). Four laboratories were placed at ground level; the fifth (IFIN-HH μBq) is situated in a former salt mine at a floor depth 208 m from the surface entrance.…”

“…Consequently, before measurements, firmly shaking containers by hand, for at Table 3 Radioactive contents of the raw slag before spiking. Values were determined in a previous work (see Sahagia et al (2013)) as the weighted mean of the contribution of 5 laboratories, excepting for those elements for which an outlier value was identified. Uncertainties are given for a coverage factor k ¼ 1. least one minute, was adopted (test 1).…”