Abstract
A Survey taken by the world health organization (WHO) and the international commission on radiation protection (ICRP) shows that residents of temperate climate spends only about 20% of their time outdoor and about 80% indoors and certain materials use for the construction of such buildings (rocks, soils, tiles etc) are known to be radioactive, and exposure to such radiation results in critical health challenges. Assessment of indoor and outdoor background ionizing radiation level at School of Technology, Kano State Polytechnic, Nigeria was carried out using a digital radiation meter (Radiation Alert Inspector). A total of 49 areas were surveyed and the results obtained showed that the annual indoor reading were highest at Compounding Lab. (2.368±0.35 mSv/yr) and Old Chemistry Lab. (2.169±0.35 mSv/yr), and lowest at New Biology Lab. (1.219±0.21 mSv/yr) and Press Workshop (1.303±0.35 mSv/yr). For the outdoor areas, SOT ring road was found to have the highest value of 0.557±0.17 mSv/yr, while Zoological Garden has the lowest effective value of 0.280±0.05 mSv/yr. For the lecture venues, Auditorium has the highest indoor annual equivalent dose of 2.060±0.49 mSv/yr, while H-Block ND I Textile Class recorded the lowest values of 1.275±0.27 mSv/yr. Base on the aforementioned findings, it was deduced that radiation levels are within the permissible radiation limit as stipulated by the ICRP and UNSCEAR of 2.4 mSv/yr and thus, SOT Kano is radiologically safe.Keywords: Indoor and outdoor, background radiation, equivalent dose, Digital Radiation meter
Highlights
A Survey taken by the world health organization (WHO) and the international commission on radiation protection (ICRP) shows that residents of temperate climate spends only about 20% of their time outdoor and about 80% indoors and certain materials use for the construction of such buildings are known to be radioactive, and exposure to such radiation results in critical health challenges
The radioactive disintegration of uranium-238 produces 222Rn which in turn decays with a half-life of 3.82 days (Masok et al, 2015). It penetrates into the lungs and the continuous deposition and penetration of such high energy particles through the lungs leads to tissue damage and mutation which leads to incidence of lung cancer (Chad-Umoren et al, 2007).The International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) in 1990 set a worldwide annual equivalent dose rate limit of exposure to ionizing radiation to 1mSv/yr for the protection of human beings and wildlife (ICRP, 1990) while the average effective dose rate limit of 2.4mSv/yr was set by the United Nation Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiations (UNSCEAR) for most indoor facilities such as research laboratories, conference halls, lecture venues, offices, etc. (UNSCEAR, 2000)
Previous studies have shown that areas with high background radiation are found in Yangjiang, China; Kerele, India; and Ramsar, Iran (Ghiassi-nejad et al, 2002); as well as in Asia, maximum outdoor measurement was recorded in Malaysia and the maximum indoor measurement was recorded in Hong Kong and Iran (Gholami et al, 2011).In Nigeria, outdoor background ionizing radiation profile has received much attention than indoor background ionizing radiation, even though studies have established the presence of dangerous background ionizing radiation within buildings
Summary
A Survey taken by the world health organization (WHO) and the international commission on radiation protection (ICRP) shows that residents of temperate climate spends only about 20% of their time outdoor and about 80% indoors and certain materials use for the construction of such buildings (rocks, soils, tiles etc) are known to be radioactive, and exposure to such radiation results in critical health challenges. Surveys taken by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) show that residents of temperate climates spend only about 20% of their time outdoors and 80% indoors (their homes, offices, schools and other buildings) (Chad-Umoren et al, 2007) The implication of this statistics is obvious; the probability of exposure to dangerous radiation is higher indoors than outdoors. X is the reading displayed directly from the radiation meter, Y and Z are the converted indoor and outdoor meter’s readings to micro-Sievert per hour while IAEDR and OAEDR are the Indoor and Outdoor Annual Effective Dose Rates for different places respectively
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