Year
2023
File Attachment
Abstract
The earth`s crust since its genesis has contained radionuclides with long half-lives, such as
nuclei of uranium thorium series and 40K. Radioactivity of these nuclei causes natural radiation. Delhi
is the capital of India located in the Northern part of India. Due to industrial affluent natural
radioactivity rises in the river while it passes through the metro city. Therefore, measurements of
radioactivity are necessary to keep tab on the industrial affluents as the Yamuna water is being used for
irrigation purposes also. This affects the human habitants as well since radionuclides in soil contribute
towards
a significant component of the background radiation exposure to the population The present study
focusses on activity measurements i.e., concentrations of naturally occurring 40K, 238U, and 232Th
radionuclides, in soil samples collected from Yamuna bank near Sadar Bazar Delhi, India. For carrying
out experiments we have taken help of Nuclear Security Education Laboratory at Amity Institute of
Nuclear Science &Technology (AINST) setup in collaboration with the Centre for Nuclear Security
Science and Policy Initiatives (NSSPI) at Texas A & M University (TAMU), and Oak Ridge National
Laboratory (ORNL). The activity of radionuclides in soil from different location from the study area
were measured by means of gamma spectrometry with Radioidentifinder (RIID) having a Nal(TI)
detector where the dimension of NaI(Tl) crystal is 1.2″x1″. The activity in soil samples showed
variation, which led to measurement of specific activity and gamma ray absorbed doses of the naturally
occurring radionuclides, taking the efficiency of detector into consideration