Man-Made Plutonium in Environment — Possible Hazard for Human Health

Abstract

It is pointed out that, contrary to the situation with natural Rn, the growing concentration of man-made Pu in environment — natural water, soil, plants and food — can provide serious danger for all kind of animals and especially for mankind. Really, as it was established recently, element Pu is accumulated in human body during all the life and the dangerous concentration estimated to be about 10−12 gram Pu per gram of human tissues. Unfortunately up to now there are no simple non expensive methods of Pu determination at the level of sensitivity 10−14– 1015 g/g which can provide the determination of Pu even in 0.1 g of human tissue. We warn that now the average concentration of Pu in human body is not less than 10−14 g/g and much higher for some “hot” regions in Europe and Asia. We propose to discuss the problem of organizing world net exploration of Pu in environment — similarly to Rn exploration program — and personnel Pu monitoring for inhabitants of Pu damaged regions. Our approach to the problem is based on chemical separation of Pu, on determination of plutonium by high fission cross section with thermal neutrons 239Pu (n, f) reaction and by control of possible admixture of 235U isotope by 238U (γ, f) reaction in Pu preparations. Such a procedure provides the level of sensitivity up to 10−13 g/g of Pu for solid samples in our initial studies.