RADIUM CONCENTRATION IN SOME BOTTLED MINERAL WATERS FROM ROMANIA
Pages 100-105
M.Moldovan, C.Cosma
Abstract
The most important radionuclids from water and gas radioactivity point of view are: the uranium, the radium and the radon with it's short life descendents. This paperwork wants to determinate the radium concentration from 20 type of bottled mineral water commercially available in Romania. We used Luk-3A-a Czech device. Using this device we can determine the radium concentration directly, after we measure the radon resulted from balanced radium-226; the direct forerunner of radon is secular balanced with the radon-222. It has been determined in many cases-in different countries-that the 226Ra concentration in mineral water is higher than that measured in tap water (Fernández, Cerretero, Liger, Canete, & Duenos, 1999; Marovic, Sencar, Franic, & Lokobauer, 1996; Szerbin, Guczi, Stúr, Sztanyik, & Ugron, 1997). Enrichment of radium in drinking water and food enhances the ingestion dose due to its long physical and biological half-life (T: 1622 years and Tb: 45 years). The elevated ingestion of 226Ra might provide an annual internal dose near to the 0.1 mSv year-1 reference level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) (Guidelines for Drinking- Water Quality, 1993). Therefore determination of the concentration of 226Ra in mineral water has become important.
The results of the studies about radium in mineral water show that the radium concentration values measured are comparable with values measured and given in literature and they are under the maximum accepted values. According to the PHS estimations, the maximum level of contamination for radium (combined 226Ra and 228Ra) from the public water is 5 pCi/l.