Tritium and 14 C background levels in pristine aquatic systems and their potential sources of variability

Eyrolle-Boyer, Frédérique; Claval, David; Cossonnet, C.; Zebracki, Mathilde; Gairoard, S.; Radakovitch, Olivier; Calmon, Philippe; Leclerc, Élisabeth

doi:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2014.09.015

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Those events enhanced at global scale the HTO concentrations in rainwater more than hundred times higher than natural levels (UNSCEAR, 2000). In France, OBT levels in non-nuclearized river sediments (2.4 ± 0.6 Bq L_1) are currently almost similar to mean HTO contents recorded for rainwater (1.6 ± 0.4 Bq L_1) and converge to HTO concentrations in river waters with almost balanced OBT/HTO ratios (Eyrolle-Boyer et al, 2015). Nevertheless, OBT/HTO ratio disequilibrium was recently observed in deep estuarine and riverine sediments highlighting tritium persistence in organic matter in aquatic systems (Croudace et al, 2012;Eyrolle et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Trajectories of technogenic tritium in the Rhône River (France)

Morereau

Lepage

Claval

et al. 2020

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity

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Tritium is a radioisotope of hydrogen with a half-life of 12.32 years and was used for its luminescent properties by the watchmaking industry from 1962 to the 2008. Tritiated luminescent salts were integrated in the paints applied on the index and dial of watches and clocks. French and Swiss watchmaking workshops used more than 28 000 TBq of tritium over this period of time and produced almost 350 million watches. Despite the end of tritiated salts use in watchmaking workshops in 1992 in France and 2008 in Switzerland, high level of organically bound tritium (OBT) are still observed in sediments of the Rhône River downstream the Lake Geneva. Contamination of the Rhône River by tritiated hot particles since 1962 up to nowadays remains poorly documented. In order to assess the long term behavior and fate of technogenic tritium in this river and its trajectories in the river system, two sediment cores were collected at the upstream (UC) and downstream (DC) part of the Rhône River in France and OBT contents were determined. For both sedimentary cores, maximum OBT contents were registered over the 1980s when tritium was intensively used by watchmaking industries. These residual OBT contents are 1.000 to 10 000 fold higher than current natural background levels in riverine sediments. The OBT contents progressively decreased since 1989 with close effective half-life in upstream and downstream area (5 ± 2 years). The OBT contents were lower in DC than in UC due to the dilution by uncontaminated sediments delivered by tributaries not affected by the watchmaking industries. Trajectories analysis indicates that the resiliency of the Rhône River system in regards to this contamination would be reached in 14-70 years and in 14-28 years respectively for the upstream and downstream part of the river.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 53%

Trajectories of technogenic tritium in the Rhône River (France)

Morereau

Lepage

Claval

et al. 2020

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity

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“…Tritium can persist in both terrestrial and aquatic environments according to the recycling rates of organic matter. A study showed that the mean Organically Bound Tritium (OBT) concentration in the sediments of Rhone river in France, is not significantly different from the mean HTO concentration recorded for rainwater (2.4 ± 0.6 Bq/L and 1.6 ± 0.4 Bq/L, respectively) [8]. The authors have the hypothesis that regional differences are expected depending on the biomass inventories affected by the global fallout and the recycling rates of the organic matter in the various affected watersheds.…”

Section: B Organic Bound Tritium (Obt)mentioning

confidence: 89%

“…300 g sediment was taken in the Rhine river bank (the sample point can be shown in figure 3) with depth ± 5 cm from ground surface. The collected sediment was putted in 500 ml plastic bottle and then stored in refrigerator with temperature 5ºC [8].…”

Section: A Sample Locationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding of Tritium Behavior Toward Sediment in Aquatic System

Saputra¹,

Nero²,

Quaranta³

et al. 2020

Proceedings of the First International Conference of Science, Engineering and Technology, ICSET 2019, November 23 2019, Jakarta

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Tritium is one of the hydrogen isotopes and can be produced either by a cosmic ray or human activities such as waste from nuclear facilities and chemical industries. Recent studies have shown that tritium can be bounded with organic matter and possibly with nanoparticles in aquatic systems. This form of tritium known as organically bound tritium can be trapped in sediment and lead to the potential of ecotoxicity. T his paper will give insight how the tritium can be absorbed by modeled sediment and can be further absorbed with help of organic matter present in the system.

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“…For conservative tracer, if transversal and depth variations can be neglected then tracer distribution in longitudinal direction as a function of time analytically can be written as [8,[12][13][14]:…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One liter water of concentration of 1 TU is equivalent to 0.12 Bq in radioactivity. Other characteristics of this tracer are [14][15]: half-life is 12. 32 years; average and maximum energies are 5.7 and 18.6 keV, respectively; specific activity in T 2 O is 2700 Ci/g; annual limit intake (ALI) is 80 mCi; maximum permissible concentration 1 x 10 -3 µCi/ml.…”

Section: Tracer Usedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Average Tracer Concentration Approach for Flow Rate Measurement and Field Calibration

2016

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:Tracer method Flow rate Open channel flow Tritium Rhodamine WT Tracer method is one of the methods available for open channel flow rate measurements such as in irrigation canals. Average tracer concentration approach is an instantaneous injection method that based on the average tracer concentrations value at the sampling point. If the procedures are correct and scientific considerations are justified, tracer method will give relatively high accuracy of measurements. The accuracy of the average tracer concentration approach has been assessed both in laboratory and field. The results of accuracy tests of open channel flow that has been conducted at the Center for Application Isotopes and Radiation Laboratory-BATAN showed that the accuracy level of average concentrations approach method was higher than 90% compared to the true value (volumetric flow rate). The accuracy of average tracer concentration approach was also assessed during the application of the method to measure flow rate of Mrican irrigation canals as an effort to perform field calibration of existing weirs. Both average tracer concentration approach and weirs can predict the trend of the flow correctly. However, it was observed that flow discrepancies between weirs measurement and average tracer concentration approach predictions were as high as 27%. The discrepancies might be due to the downgrading performances of the weirs because of previous floods and high sediment contents of the flow.

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Tritium and 14 C background levels in pristine aquatic systems and their potential sources of variability

Cited by 18 publications

References 25 publications

Trajectories of technogenic tritium in the Rhône River (France)

Trajectories of technogenic tritium in the Rhône River (France)

Understanding of Tritium Behavior Toward Sediment in Aquatic System

Assessment of Average Tracer Concentration Approach for Flow Rate Measurement and Field Calibration

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