Measurement of Specific Activities of Natural Radionuclides (40K, 226Ra and 232Th) in Surface Beach Sand Samples Collected from Bangsaen Beach in Chonburi Province, Thailand

Abstract

Specific activities of natural radionuclides (40K, 226Ra and 226Th) in 50 surface beach sand samples which were collected from Bangsaen beach in Chonburi Province (Thailand), have been studied and measured. Experimental results were obtained by using a high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector and gamma spectrometry analysis system at quantitative measurement of radiation laboratory of Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (Public Organization) (TINT). The IAEA-SOIL-375 standard source was used to analyze and compute the specific activities of 40K, 226Ra and 226Th in all samples. The measuring time for each sample is 3 hrs. It was found that the specific activities of 40K, 226Ra and 226Th were ranged from 510.85 - 771.35, 8.17 - 17.06 and 4.25 - 15.68 Bq/kg with mean values of 615.84 ± 14.62, 10.18 ± 0.70
and 7.87 ± 0.86 Bq/kg, respectively. Moreover, the experimental results were also compared with Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP) research data, Thailand and global radioactivity measurement and evaluations.