Open AccessDetermination of naturally occurring radionuclides in Disi aquifer water of Jordan
Author(s) -
M.B. Al-Bedri,
T. A. J. Younis,
I. J. Abdulghani,
W. O. Hameed
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/871/1/012066
Subject(s) - radium , aquifer , radionuclide , radiochemistry , groundwater , environmental science , environmental chemistry , gamma spectroscopy , semiconductor detector , chemistry , geology , spectroscopy , detector , physics , geotechnical engineering , optics , quantum mechanics
The Disi water samples were collected from different Disi aquifer wells in Jordan using a clean polyethylene container of 10-liter size. A hyper-pure germanium (HPGe) detector with high- resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy and a low background counting system was used for the identification of unknown gamma-rays emitting from radionuclides in the environmental samples. The ranges of specific activity concentrations of 226 Ra and 228 Ra in the Disi aquifer water were found to be from 0.302 ± 0.085 to 0.723 ± 0.207 and from 0.047 ± 0.010 to 0.525 ± 0.138 Bq L −1 , with average values of 0.516 ± 0.090 and 0.287 ± 0.091 Bq L −1 , respectively. The average combined radium ( 226 Ra + 228 Ra) activity and radium activity ratio ( 228 Ra/ 226 Ra) in Disi groundwater were found to be 0.803 ± 0.187 and 0.550 ± 0.178, respectively. A comparison was made between the present results and the international minimum recommended limits and previously published data from different countries.