Individual and workplace monitoring measurements made after a 240Pu incident and during the clean-up operations

Individual and workplace monitoring measurements made after a 240Pu incident and during the clean-up operations

On 3 August 2008, five glass vials containing around 7 GBq of (240)Pu in nitric acid solution burst in a laboratory operated by the IAEA in Seibersdorf, Austria. The vials were located in a fire-proof safe in the IAEA Safeguards Analytical Laboratory, and the release of the (240)Pu caused an air con...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Radiation protection dosimetry Vol. 144; no. 1-4; pp. 548 - 550
Main Authors: Hochmann, R, Eisenwagner, H, Benesch, T, Hunt, J, Cruz-Suarez, R, Bulyha, S, Schmitzer, C
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England 01-03-2011
Subjects:
Air pollution
Austria
Dosimetry
Environmental Monitoring - instrumentation
Humans
Mass spectrometry
Mass Spectrometry - methods
Nitric acid
Occupational Exposure - prevention & control
Plutonium - analysis
Radiation Monitoring - instrumentation
Radiation Monitoring - methods
Radiation Protection - instrumentation
Radiation Protection - methods
Radioactive Hazard Release
Radioisotopes
Radioisotopes - analysis
Radiometry - instrumentation
Radiometry - methods
Surface Properties
Workplace
Austria
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:On 3 August 2008, five glass vials containing around 7 GBq of (240)Pu in nitric acid solution burst in a laboratory operated by the IAEA in Seibersdorf, Austria. The vials were located in a fire-proof safe in the IAEA Safeguards Analytical Laboratory, and the release of the (240)Pu caused an air contamination in the room and in adjoining rooms. Immediate emergency work was carried out, which was then followed by a long period of clean-up operations. A large number of conventional individual and workplace monitoring measurements were carried out immediately after the incident and during the clean-up work. In addition, due to the fact that (240)Pu has a very low background presence in the environment, and that the IAEA laboratories operate an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry system capable of very low levels of detection of this radionuclide, a number of non-conventional measurements were made to detect (240)Pu on, for example, the photographic camera used to document the incident, on nasal swabs from the first responders, etc. Plastic beakers were left in the corridor of the controlled area to accumulate (240)Pu from precipitation to see whether it was possible to detect traces of the radionuclide. This paper presents the measurements obtained, and discusses their relevance to occupational radiation protection.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-2
ObjectType-Feature-1
ISSN:0144-8420
1742-3406
DOI:10.1093/rpd/ncq492