Abstract
In this investigation, natural radioactive contents in tiles manufactured in Nigeria and tiles imported from China were measured using gamma ray spectroscopy. High Purity Germanium detector was used to estimate the concentrations of some radioisotopes present in 17 samples of various tiles from Nigeria and China. The average activity concentrations of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K for the tiles were found to be 68.2 ± 0.5; 173.9 ± 9.2 and 490 ± 15 Bq/kg and 58.2 ± 0.5, 161.5 ± 9.4 and 455.7 ± 15.1 Bq/kg for the tiles from Nigeria and China respectively. Radiological hazard indices such as absorbed dose rate, radium equivalent activity, external Hazard Index (Hex), internal Hazard Index (Hin), Annual Effective Dose (mSv/y), Gamma activity Index (Iγ) and Alpha Index (Iα) were determined for both kind of tiles from Nigeria and China. The mean values obtained were: 354.56 and 317.16 Bq/kg; 169.22 nGyh−1 and 153.92 nGyh−1; 0.95 and 0.87; 1.14 and 1.08; 1.59 mSv/y and 1.52 mSv/y; 1 and 1.15 and; 0.34 and 0.29 respectively. The mean value of radium equivalent obtained in this study is less than that of the international reference value of 370 Bq/kg for the both kind of tiles.
Highlights
The two major natural sources through which human society are exposed to radiation externally are terrestrial gamma rays and cosmic rays
The results show that PNT ceramic tiles (30 × 30 mm) made in Nigeria and Virony Glazed tiles (40 × 40 mm) imported from China had the highest 226Ra concentration of 241 ± 0.5 and 75 ± 0.5 Bq/kg, respectively; NISPRO and Virony Rustic Glass tiles of size 40 × 40 mm have 461 ± 9.5 and 405 ± 9.4 Bq/kg for 232Th and 860 ± 15 Bq/kg for 40K while Iddris tile imported from China has value of 740 ± 15 Bq/kg for 40K respectively
The absorbed dose rate in air was found to be in the ranged of 70.61 to 352.51 nGyh−1 with mean value of 169.22 nGyh−1 which is higher than international value of 55 nGyh−1 by factors of 3.2 and 2.1 according to UNSCEAR12 and 80 nGyh−1 by[1] while tiles imported from China ranged between 81.60 nGyh−1 and 305.17 nGyh−1 and higher than the recommended value as established by[1] and[12]
Summary
The two major natural sources through which human society are exposed to radiation externally are terrestrial gamma rays and cosmic rays. In European, Asian and some African countries attention has been paid to the monitoring of natural radioactivity in building materials[7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23] These present research work aim to investigate radionuclides concentration and its associated hazard indices in tiles made in Nigeria and compared with tiles imported from China to ascertain the radiation dose level for health safety
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