Measurement of Radium Equivalent Activity from Natural Occurring Radionuclides in Soil in the East Coast of Libya

Abstract

The technological development, using atomic, and nuclear energy in industry, agriculture, nuclear medicine, nuclear wars and tests may increase environmental pollution with noticeable concentrations of man-made radionuclides in the environment. This experimental work aims at the determination of radium equivalent activity from the soil samples collected from sites extending from Benghazi city to the Libyan-Egyptian borders, along 600 km. Samples collected from fifty chosen sites, kept for four weeks to get a secular equilibrium between 226Ra and 232Th and their corresponding daughters. The result indicated that the value of radium equivalent (Raeq) ranged from 208.919 to73.881 Bq/kg, with an average of 117.587 Bq/kg