ABSTRACT
Gamma spectrometry is widely used for radionuclide activity measurement of environmental sample including 226Ra in soil because it is versatile, easy to implement, non-destructive, and relatively cheap compared to other methods. By gamma spectrometry, 226Ra can be determined directly using its energy peak of 186.2 keV or indirectly by its decay products which are in secular equilibrium with 226Ra, i.e. 214Bi and 214Pb. However, both methods have challenges where for direct measurement, interfering from 235U energy peak of 185.7 keV can add significant contribution to the 186.2 keV of 226Ra gamma peak while for indirect measurement using energy peaks of 214Bi and 214Pb, decay products of 222Rn gas, longer time (at least 21 days) for their equilibrium ingrowth is needed and radon tightness of sample container must be ensured. In some measurements, the equilibrium could not be reached due to radon leakage from sample container. Therefore, in this paper, the radon leakage fraction from three different sealing methods of Marinelli beaker used in soil activity measurement were studied using HPGe detector and radon accumulation chamber with RAD7. The three sealing methods were only lid without sealing (MB1), sealed with paraffin film (MB2), sealed with silicone glue and vacuumed plastic bag (MB3) and their leakage fractions were 53%, 30%, and negligible leakage, respectively. Significant radon leakage from MB1 and MB2 have caused underestimation of 226Ra activity concentration measured by indirect gamma spectrometry. The study result recommends using MB3 sealing method for gamma spectrometry measurement because it is simple and cheap and has negligible leakage, moreover, its vacuumed plastic bag facilitates visual inspection to possible radon leakage.
