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Gross alpha and beta activities of airborne particulate samples from Wawel Royal Castle Museum in Cracow, Poland

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Abstract

PM-10, PM-2.5 and PM-1.0 concentrations were measured over an 8 h period at sites both inside and outside the museum of Wawel Royal Castle in Cracow, Poland. Gross alpha (α) and beta (β) activities seemed to vary across the particle size range with generally higher levels of activities in the PM-2.5 particle fraction, and higher activities in the PM-10 fraction, while both the highest and the lowest beta activities were found in PM-1.0 fraction. However, statistically there was no significant difference. The highly radioactive PM-1.0 fraction comprised mainly 210Pb and the 210Pb progeny, 210Bi and 210Po, and can be attributed to anthropogenic sourced outdoor radioactive particles brought indoors by visitors. 210Pb is considered to be a good tracer of secondary aerosols produced by gas-to-particle conversion. Inside the Museum, the highest level of gross alpha activity was detected in the PM-10 fraction, and was mainly due to the uranium isotopes (234U, 235U and 238U) and their daughter products (226Ra, 232Th, 210Po or 224Ra), and 137Cs. The minimum and maximum total indicative doses per 8 h are caused by 137Cs and 232Th, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University, 53100, Rize, Turkey

    Songul Akbulut

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610, Antwerp, Belgium

    Barbara Krupińska, Anna Worobiec & Rene Van Grieken

  3. Department of Physics, Karadeniz Technical University, 61080, Trabzon, Turkey

    Ugur Cevik

  4. Cekmece Nuclear Research and Training Centre, Turkish Atomic Energy Authority, 34303, Istanbul, Turkey

    Halim Taskın

  5. Department of Medical Physics and Biophysics, AGH University of Science and Technology, Al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059, Cracow, Poland

    Lucyna Samek

  6. Department of Chief Curator, Wawel Royal Castle, The National Art Collection, Wawel 5, 31-001, Cracow, Poland

    Ewa Wiłkojć

Authors
  1. Songul Akbulut
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  2. Barbara Krupińska
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  3. Anna Worobiec
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  4. Ugur Cevik
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  5. Halim Taskın
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  6. Rene Van Grieken
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  7. Lucyna Samek
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  8. Ewa Wiłkojć
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Correspondence to Songul Akbulut.

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Akbulut, S., Krupińska, B., Worobiec, A. et al. Gross alpha and beta activities of airborne particulate samples from Wawel Royal Castle Museum in Cracow, Poland. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 295, 1567–1573 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-012-1983-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-012-1983-8

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