Environmental radon, its exhalation rates and activity concentration of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40kK in Northern India

Abstract

Human beings are constantly exposed to radioactivity in the environment. As they are major sources of harmful radiation, radionuclides found in the atmosphere might result in a substantial potential risk to living beings. On the Earth's surface, the radioactive elements uranium and radium are naturally present, contributing to radon and thoron gases in the indoor as well as outdoor climate, soil and water. Radon is one of the most important toxins that, after cigarette smoking, is the second most common cause of generating lung cancer. Due to these health-related concerns, a lot of work has been undertaken by numerous research organizations to determine their levels at different locations throughout the world. This paper is an attempt to comprehensively report with different techniques all those studies being carried out in this part of India so that a current assessment of the indoor radon levels should be available for further work in this field. Six northern Indian states, viz. Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan , Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are considered for this examination. This study also provides data on exhalation rates and activity concentration of natural radionuclides (226Ra, 232Th, and 40K) present in these states.

Estimation of Radon Thoron Levels in Jind Area of Haryana

“…Our group earlier work has shown the importance of the measurement of levels of indoor radon, thoron and their progeny. (7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13). However, small work has been reported for the Jind area of Haryana shown in Figure 1.…”

Estimation of Radon/Thoron and their progeny concentration in some dwellings and exhalation rates from soils of Samana city, Patiala

“…When these gases decay into their corresponding progenies, which are solid and have a short half-life, they decay into their decay product emitting high-energy alpha particles. If these alpha particles cause any changes in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), they can cause cancer [2]. In some instances, these progenies permeate the blood vessels through the lungs, and the heart pumps them to every portion of the body.…”