Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards

[Link] page 8 - 1

8 - INTERNAL RADIATION HAZARDS

INTRODUCTION
Most radionuclides will give you much more radiation dose if they can somehow enter your
body than they would if they remained outside. In this chapter we will look at how
radionuc1ides enter, move around in, and leave the body. Then we'll discuss the internal
hazards at Point Lepreau; namely tritiated water, radioiodines and airborne radioactive dusts.
At the end of this chapter, you should be able to estimate the radiation dose you would receive
when exposed to internal hazards. This ability is essential for doing radiation work.

INTERNAL RADIATION HAZARDS

Among the first people to suffer injury and death from the effects of internal sources were the
radium dial painters mentioned in Chapter 3 (page 116). Relatively large quantities of radium
entered their gastrointestinal tracts, some radium was absorbed in their bodies, and most of
this was deposited in their bones. After death it was shown that some skeletons contained
many micrograms of radium.

When dealing with external exposure, protective means are fairly straightfonvard; usually the
radiation level can be measured easily with an instrument, and the exposure can be stopped at
any time by walking away from the source. However, the hazard presented by internal sources
demands more elaborate precautions for the following reasons:

1. Only some of the radiation emitted by external sources is directed towards the body; the
rest will not be able to interact with it. However, if such sources are taken into the body,
all of the radiation emitted is capable of interacting with the body.

2. The chemical properties of some radionuclides cause them to concentrate in certain body
organs or tissues rather than be spread throughout the body. This means that all the
energy of alpha and beta emissions and part of the energy of the gamma emissions are
absorbed in these tissues, causing them to receive much more radiation dose than the
body as a whole.

Reasons (1) and (2) explain why the dose rate from sources within the body is much
greater than from the same sources outside the body.

3. Internal sources irradiate the body 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until they have
been eliminated from the body by excretion and decay. In other words, you canlt walk
away from them as you can with external sources.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8- 2

4. While some radionuclides are eliminated fairly rapidly, there are others that remain in the
body for years. And in many cases it is difficult to increase their rate of elimination from
the body.

5. Finally, we tend to be more cautious in our dealings with internal hazards, because once
the radionuclides have entered the body, it is often difficult to estimate the dose they will
deliver.

ENTRY OF RADIONUCLIDES INTO THE BODY

Radioactive materials may occur in many physical or chemical forms just as other materials do.
They may appear as solids, powders, dusts, liquids, gases, vapours or solutions. Internal
contamination can result from the careless handling of such radioactive material. It may enter
the body in three different ways:

1) Inhalation (breathing it),

2) Ingestion (eating it),
3) Absorption through the unbroken skin or through wounds.

In the nuclear power industry, inhalation is generally considered to be by far the most likely
route for entry of toxic materials into the body. Inhaled material cleared from the lungs often
enters the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract) and then a secondary ingestion type of exposure
occurs.

The behaviour of inhaled radionuclides in the lungs depends on whether they are soluble or
insoluble in lung fluids. The term used by the ICRP to describe solubility in body fluids is "
transportability". Transportable radionuclides will readily enter the blood stream from the lung
and deposit in body organs. Elimination from the body is mainly through urinary excretion.

For non-transportable radionuclides, the lung is usually the target organ because it retains
them for a long time. A small and uncertain fraction is eliminated in the urine, which means
that urine analysis is unreliable as a useful bioassay technique for these radionuclides. The
greater part of such non-transportable radionuclides is slowly expelled up the respiratory
passage by ciliary action, subsequently swallowed and excreted in the faeces. (Ciliary action is
the vibrating motion of small hair-like strands in the respiratory passages, which causes all
kinds of slime and nasties to be propelled back to the mouth.)

The amount of radionuclide taken up by the body depends on the magnitude of the intake,
solubility in body fluids (which in turn depends on the particular chemical form of the
radionuclide), and whether the intake is via inhalation, ingestion or absorption through the
skin.

Transportable materials which are inhaled or ingested go largely to the blood stream, while
non-transportable materials irradiate the respiratory tract or the gastrointestinal tract while
they are present.

DISTRIBUTION OF RADIONUCLIDES IN THE BODY

Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8- 3

A large percentage of radionuclides that enter the body are eliminated in the first few days.
However, a portion will be absorbed in various organs depending on the type of radionuclide.
The body deals with elements and compounds on a chemical basis. For example, normal
inactive iodine (1-127) concentrates in the thyroid gland. If radioactive 1-131 is present as
well, the body cannot differentiate between the two isotopes that are chemically identical, and
the active 1-131 will also concentrate in the thyroid.

Some elements are so closely chemically related, that the body cannot always differentiate
effectively between two different elements. For example, chemists say that calcium,
strontium, barium and radium are in the same group. Calcium present in the body is largely
deposited in the bone, and any radioisotopes of strontium, barium and radium that enter the
body will therefore also collect to a considerable extent in the bone. Such radioisotopes
(called bone-seekers) are excreted at a very slow rate once they have been deposited in the
bone. If their radioactive half-life is long, they may therefore irradiate the sensitive bone
marrow, as well as the bone, for many years.

The tissue (which may be a body organ) in which

radiation is absorbed is known as TARGET TISSUE.

For exposures to radioactive iodine, the main target tissue would be the thyroid gland; for
inhaled strontium it is the lung, but for ingested strontium it is the bone.

ELIMINATION OF RADIONUCLIDES FROM THE BODY

In addition to the tendency for a particular element to be taken up by a particular organ or

tissue, the main consideration in determining the hazard of a given radioisotope inside the
body is the total radiation dose delivered to the target tissue The most Important factors
determining this dose are:

1) The amount of radioactive material deposited,

2) The length oftime for which it is effective in the body,
3) The type and energy of the radiations emitted.

The time depends on two factors: one is the radioactive half-life, T... the other is the
biological half-life, Tb'

The BIOLOGICAL HALF-LIFE is the time taken for

the amount of a particular element in the body to
decrease to half its initial value due to elimination by
biological processes alone.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
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The biological half-life depends on the rate at which the body normally uses a particular
compound of an element. The combination of the radioactive half-life and the biological
half-life gives rise to the effective half-life, T e .

The effective half-life, Te, is given by the equations

1 1 1
=-+- or
Te Tr Tb

Serious internal hazards are presented by those radionuclides that have long effective
half-lives, such as Ra-226 and Pu-239 with effective half-lives of 45 and 100 years
respectively. Once deposited in bone, they remain there essentially unchanged in amount
during the lifetime of the individual. The continued action of the emitted alpha particles can
cause significant injury, because they deposit their energy over a period of years in a limited
region. This was the case with the radium dial painters.

PHYSICAL FORM OF INTERNAL CONTAMINANTS

Particulates

Many of the fission products and activation products that are encountered as air contaminants
in a nuclear plant are present as particulates. The radionuclides often collect on small dust
particles of other materials, and these particles float about in the air acting as carriers for the
radioactivity, which may then be inhaled. If the particulate is collected on a filter paper, so is
the radioactivity.

Gases

The radioisotopes of the noble gases are, of course, present as gases. Some of these are
argon-41, xenon-l33, xenon-l35 and krypton-88. The noble gases do not combine with other
elements and, fortunately, the body has no use for them. Therefore, they do not become
concentrated in the body. The noble gases are considered to be an external radiation hazard
rather than an internal one.

Vapours

The radioiodines are usually present in the form of vapours, although some of the iodine may
be attached to dust particles. These radionuclides are readily absorbed by the body and are
mainly concentrated in one organ, the thyroid. The noble gases and the iodines are the
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page 8 - 5

radioelements which escape most readily from defective fuel elements. Tritium vapour is
another internal radiation hazard of considerable importance in heavy water reactors.

Now that you've got a general overview of internal hazards, we'll go on to discuss the various
aspects in more detail.

ANNUAL LIMIT ON INTAKE

For internal hazards, we first should distinguish between intake and uptake, words that are
often used interchangeably but shouldn't be.

INTAKE is what you take in.

UPTAKE is what you keep.

Think of a smoker. With each suck on his cigarette, he drags all kinds of crud into his lungs.
That's the intake. Fortunately most of this is exhaled, and only a part of the intake remains
behind in the lungs as a deposit. That's the uptake by the lung. The nicotine in the cigarette
smoke is transportable; it enters the blood stream and is carried to the brain. The tar and other
crud is non-transportable and stays in the lungs to be partially cleared by ciliary action and"
smoker's cough".

For many radionuclides, the ICRP has calculated the relationship between intake (namely the
activity taken into the body) and the dose to the target tissue resulting from that intake. In
order to do this, ICRP used a "standard man" in its mathematical models. He is known as
Reference Man, and is described in great detail in ICRP Publication 23, which contains a lot
of interesting anatomical and physiological data. (For example, the average guy's toenails
grow 0.25 mm per week, and he has 1.8 m' of skin weighing 2.6 kg.)

ICRP has calculated Annual Limits on Intake for radionuclides. These differ widely for the
various radionuclides that were treated by ICRP.

The ANNUAL LIMIT ON INTAKE (ALI) is the activity

of a radionuclide that taken in by itself would commit a
person, represented by Reference Man, to 20 mSv of
weighted dose, HW'

The idea behind these ALIs is that in any year, your intake must not exceed that amount that
would cause you to receive a weighted dose greater than 20 mSv. Let's use a couple of
examples to be sure that you understand what this means.

For 1-131, for instance, ICRP has calculated that if you inhale 1E6 Bq, you will receive a
thyroid dose ofHT = 400 mSv. The weighted dose equivalent to this is HW = HTwT = 400 x
0.05 = 20 mSv. The ALIfor 1-131 is therefore 1E6 Bq.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page8-6

It doesn't matter whether you inhale this in a short time (say an hour) or over a period of one
year. In both cases the activity taken into the body is the same, and you will receive a thyroid
dose of 400 mSv.

Let's take another example. For Sr-90, the target tissue is the lung which has a weighting
factor of 0.12. A tissue dose, HT' of 167 mSv to the lung will correspond to a weighted dose
ofHW = 167 x 0.12 = 20 mSv. Therefore, the ALI for Sr-90 is 6E4 Bq, because this intake
would cause you to receive a lung dose of 167 mSv, and hence a weighted dose of20 mSv.

Equally important is the time span over which the doses are delivered. Let's use 1-131 and
Pu-239 as examples. The effective half-life ofI-13 I is about 8 days. Its target tissue is the
thyroid with a weighting factor of 0.05. The effective half-life of Pu-239 is about 100 years.
Its target tissue is bone with a weighting factor of 0.01.

An intake of I ALI of 1-131 will deliver 400 mSv to the thyroid, and hence 20 mSv of
weighted dose, within six weeks or so. 1 ALI of plutonium-239 will deliver 2,000 mSv to
bone, and will also result in 20 mSv of weighted dose. Neither of these examples is at all
likely in practice - certainly not the plutonium - but I'm trying to get you to get a grip on
the principles here.

The 20 mSv weighted dose from Pu-239 will be spread over a very long time. Fig. 8.1 shows
how the dose from an intake of 1 ALI every year would be delivered. The important thing to
realize is that the annual dose limit will never be exceeded, even after 50 years of occupational
exposure in the case of Pu-239, provided that you do not take in more than 1 ALI of a
radionuclide each year. This of course assumes that this is the only source of exposure.

DOBe
Rate

o 1 2 3 ·4 y.a..r.
1-131: Dose from I ALI taken in at the start of each year (HT = 400 mSv; Hw = mSv) is
delivered in the year of intake, because the half-life is so short.

Dose
Rate
Radiation Protection Chapter B: Internal RadWan Hazards
J.u. Burnham page8-7

The ICRP actually lists two values of the ALI for each radionuclide. One is for inhalation and
the other is for ingestion. Since ingested materials are normally cleared from the body much
faster than inhaled materials, the ALI for the ingestion pathway is usually larger than the ALI
for the inhalation pathway.

The ingestion pathway is not of much concern to us in practice, because food is not permitted
in active or potentially active areas, and every effort is made to keep drinking water absolutely
free of contamination. All ALls discussed in this chapter, and indeed throughout the whole
course, refer to values that apply to the inhalation pathway.

THE DERIVED AIR CONCENTRATION

The permissible limit for inhalation of a radionuclide is the appropriate ALI. This is quoted in
units ofBq.

For practical convenience, we use the ALI to calculate the Derived Air Concentration (DAC).

The DAC is based on the breathing rate of Reference Man when he is engaged in "light
activity" at work (ICRP's words, not NB Power's!). This breathing rate is 0.02 m3 of air per
minute.

If we assume that your breathing rate at work is pretty much the same as Reference Man's you
will breathe
3 .
m mm hours of work
0.02 - - x 60 - - x 2000
min hour year

= 2400 m3 per year at work.

Therefore, if we divide the ALI by 2400 m3, we will get the Derived Air Concentration. For
example, for 1-l31 the ALI = IE6 Bq. The corresponding DAC should be 1E6 Bq/2400 m3 =
3
417 Bq/m Since ICRP gives the ALls to one significant figure only, we shall do the same
with the DACs. In other words, we'll call the DAC for 1-l31 400 Bq/m3

The ICRP used to publish the DAC values along with the ALls, but they don't do this any
more; I guess they figure if you're smart enough to know what they mean, you're probably able
to divide by 2400 as well.

Before we discuss the practical applications of ALls and DACs, it is worth taking a look at the
factors that influence the value of the ALI for any radionuclide.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal RadWon Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8- 8

The ALI for a radionuclide depends on all of the following:

1) Type of radiation emitted.
2) Energy of the radiation emitted (including that of any radioactive daughters).
3) The selective deposition in specific body tissues.
4) The effective half-life.

TABLE 8.1. ALls OF TRITIUM AND IODINE-13I

Radio- Radiation ALI Target HTFrom HwFrom

nuclide Emitted (Bq) Tissue I ALI I ALI
H-3 (DTO) ~.only IE9 whole body 20IllSv 20mSv
1-131 ~,y IE6 thyroid 400 mSv 20 mSv

Table 8.1 lists the ALls of two important radionuclides. What the table tells us is that for an
intake of IE9 Bq of tritium (in water vapour form), you will get a whole-body dose of 20
mSv, and for an intake of IE6 Bq ofI-131 you will receive a weighted dose of20 mSv (and a
thyroid dose of 400 mSv).

Let's look at the four factors above one by one.

I) Tritium emits beta particles only, whereas 1-131 emits beta and gamma. This would tend
to make the ALI for 1-131 smaller than that for tritium, because both radiations will be
absorbed to deliver dose.

2) The energy of the beta particle emitted by tritium (Emax = 18 ke V) is much less than that
of the beta particle emitted by 1-131 (Emax = 600 ke V)' and so each tritium decay will
deliver only about 3% of the energy that is delivered by each 1-131 disintegration. This
again would tend to reduce the ALI for 1-131. We have only addressed the beta energies
here because the dose absorbed in the thyroid from the few 1-131 gamma photons
interacting with it is negligible when compared with the beta dose.

3) The tritium taken into the body is uniformly distributed among all soft tissues. Reference
Man has 63 kg of soft tissue spread throughout the body (he weighs 70 kg); so any
tritium taken up will be distributed over 63 kg of tissue. The whole body will be
irradiated.

The situation is quite different for radioiodine taken up by the body. About 30% of it ends
up in the thyroid gland, and this is a small organ weighing only 20 g. As a result, once in
the body, 1-131 will deliver a very much larger dose to the thyroid than to the rest of the
body. (If you have trouble with this, remember that absorbed dose is energy absorbed in
unit mass of material. If the iodine were to be spread throughout the body, its energy
would be absorbed in 70 kg, but since 30% of it sits in the thyroid, 30% of the energy is
absorbed in only 20 g, thereby leading to a much larger thyroid dose.) Again, this will
make the ALI for 1-131 more restrictive than that for tritium.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8- 9

4) Finally, consider the effective half-lives. These are 10 days for tritium and 7.5 days for
1-131. The difference is not large enough to be significaot. However, imagine that we
have two radionuclides A and B that emit the same type of radiation at the same energy
and both irradiate the whole body. In other words, we are making factors I, 2, aod 3
identical. Only the effective half-lives are different. A has an effective half-life Te = 10
days; for B it is 100 days. If the ALI for A = IE8 Bq, what would you expect it to be for
B?

We know that an intake of IE8 Bq of A will deliver a dose of 20 mSv before radionuclide
A is completely eliminated from the body. Radionuclide B has an effective half-life 10
times longer, and so it will be delivering dose for 10 times as long. Therefore, we must
restrict its intake to one tenth that of A if we don't want to exceed 20 mSv from B, i.e.,
the ALI for B is IE7 Bq.

What about the case of radionuclide C where the effective half-life is 100 years? (This is
the case for plutonium in bone!) If you take in a quantity of Pu-239 this year, you, or
rather your skeleton, will be receiving dose for maoy years after you have ceased to take
an interest in these matters. The ALI for such long-lived nuclides is therefore set so that
an intake corresponding to I ALI will cause the dose limit to be reached over the next 50
years.

For example, the ALI for Pu-239 is 300 Bq. If you inhale 300 Bq of Pu-239, you will
receive a weighted dose of 20 mSv within the next 50 years. Of course, you could be
lucky and die next week, in which case you'd get only a very small fraction of this dose.

Table 8.2 lists the ALls and DACs for some important radionuclides. It is important to
remember that these ALls and DACs apply to the inhalation pathway, which is the only one
we are concerned with in practice. You don't need to remember these values, they are given
only to show you the sort of range we are dealing with.

If you are ever in a position where for some reason or other you need to know the ALlor
DAC of some specific radionuclide not listed above, ask Health Physics. They'll know where
to find the answer.

TABLE 8.2. ALls AND DACs FOR SOME IMPORTANT RADIONUCLIDES

Radionuclide Radiation ALI DAC

Emitted (Bq) (Bq/m3 )
Tritium (DTO) IE9 3E5
Cobalt-60 4E5 2E2
Strontium-90 6E4 3EI
Zirconium-95 3E6 IE3
Iodine-13I IE6 4E2
Iodine-133 8E6 3E3
Iodine-135 4E7 2E4
Cesium-I 37 2E6 8E2
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
[Link] page 8 - 10

INTERNAL EXPOSURE AND COMMITTED DOSE

By now you must be wondering what the practical use of ALIs and DACs is, and if, indeed,
there is one.

Well, there certainly is. Bear with me for a moment, and it should all drop into place.

Let us use tritium as an example. The ALI is 1E9 Bq. If you take in IE9 Bq of tritium, you
will receive a whole-body dose of 20 mSv. It doesn't matter whether you take in this amount
of tritium in a short time (say a few hours) or in a long time (several months). You will still
get the same whole-body dose of20 mSv.

If you go back and look at the definition of the DAC on page 316, you will see that you could
take in the ALI by working in a tritium concentration of I DAC for 2000 hours. Therefore,
exposure to I DAC for 2000 h will result in a dose of 20 mSv. If you are exposed to I DAC
for 1000 hours instead of 2000, you will obviously take in only half as much tritium, and your
dose would then be 10 mSv instead of 20 mSv. If you are exposed to I DAC for only I hour,
the whole-body dose resulting from this would be 20 mSv/2000 = 0.010 mSv = 10 ~Sv.

You have to appreciate that if you work in I DAC of tritium for 1 hour, you will not receive
the 10 ~Sv you have coming to you in that hour, but over a period of the next several weeks.
This is because the effective half-life is 10 days, and it takes a couple of months until the
tritium has been pretty well eliminated. That's why we talk of a committed dose. By
exposing yourself to tritium now, you are committing yourself to a dose to be delivered in
the future.

Every DAC-h of tritium exposure gives you a committed dose of 10 ~Sv. Or, looking at it the
other way, working in 1 DAC of tritium is equivalent to a committed dose rate of 10
~Sv/hour. If you work for 3 hours in an area where the committed dose rate is 20 ~Sv/h (i.e.,
2 DACs), your committed dose will be 3 h x 20 ~Sv/h = 60 ~Sv.

We needn't restrict this discussion to tritium. For any radionuclide, working in 1 DAC will
result in a committed dose rate of 10 ~Sv/h. You'll find it useful to think of exposure to 1
DAC as causing the same committed dose in the future as exposure to 10 ~lSv/h right now.

Working in 1 DAC is equivalent to a

committed dose rate of 10 IlSv/h.

This concept gives us a useful method of estimating the committed dose before the exposure.
It is only an estimate, because in practice we often cannot measure the committed dose rate all
that accurately. However, it will give us important information for planning the work. For
instance, should we wear respirators or a plastic suit? It may even be desirable to ventilate the
area thoroughly before starting work there.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
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TRITIUM

Now that you're a big name in ALIs and DACs, we'll go on to discuss the radiation hazards
presented by tritium. In CANDU reactors, tritium can contribute a significant portion of
station dose. Historically, it has been responsible for 30 to 40% of the radiation dose received
by nuclear station staff.

Let us just review what we know about tritium. It is the isotope of hydrogen with one proton
and two neutrons. The symbol is 3H, H-3 or just T, for short. It emits beta particles only (no
gamma), and has a half-life of 12.3 years. The maximum beta energy is 18 keY, and the
average beta energy is 6 keV.

A beta particle has to have an energy of at least 70 keY to be able to penetrate the dead
surface layer of the skin. Therefore, tritium is not an external hazard - only when it is taken
into the body will it be able to irradiate live tissue.

PRODUCTION OF TRITIUM

Tritium is produced wherever deuterium is exposed to neutrons, i.e., whenever the moderator
and primary heat transport (PHT) heavy water is in the core. The reaction that produces the
tritium is radiative capture:

1 2 3
n+ H~ H+y
011

The rate of production ofthe tritium depends on the average thermal neutron flux to which the
heavy water is exposed. The moderator water spends most of its time in the reactor and the
PHT water spends most of its time outside the reactor. This is why tritium production in
moderator water is much greater than in PHT water.

Fig. 8.2 shows how the tritium concentration in moderator and PHT water at Point Lepreau
G. S. is expected to build up with time.

3000

2500

=.... 2000 M<x'l"[Link]"

= '<111,,1:RnI D a()

j
';;
1500
_ 1000
~

';;
ill' 500 PBT Syotliml DaO

o0!L=~5:==1~0=::::;'::5==;:20;::::=~25~=3~0==35==4jo
T1rne in Years

Fig. 8.2. Tritium Build-up at Point Lepreau G.S.

Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8-12

You can see from the curve that, as the reactor continues to operate, the tritium concentration
increases relatively quickly at first, more slowly later on, and eventually - after a very long
time - it levels out at a maximum concentration. This is called the equilibrium
concentration, because here the rate at which tritium is being produced is equal to the rate at
which it is decaying (the production rate is always constant, the decay rate is proportional to
the amount of tritium present).

The tritium concentration is normally quoted in becquerels per kilogram of D 0 (Bq/kg). If

2
Point Lepreau achieves a long-term capacity factor of 80%, the equilibrium concentration will
be about 3.5 TBq/kg in the moderator system, and in the PHT system it will be about J130th
ofthat.
.

:
i • ]
] , .+ ,

f-- i I· iLl
. i, , ,.
1,000 f--
- -- ..
],i
f-
f-- , ,
f--
,'
! ,ii ' j
, i',
100

10 100 1,000 10,000

Tritium Concentration in Water, GBqlkg

Fig. 8.3. Committed Dose Rate from Tritium

in Air Saturated with Water Vapour
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.U. Burnham page 8-13

PHYSICAL FORM OF TRITIUM

When heavy water (D2 0) is irradiated by neutrons, a small fraction of the total number of
deuterons (D) present absorbs neutrons (n, y) to become tritium atoms (T). Then there will be
water molecules in which one of the D atoms has become a T atom, and these molecules will
thus be TDO instead of D2 0 molecules. TDO is tritiated heavy water which we loosely call "
tritium". (You might expect the formula T2 0, but there are thousands ofD atoms present for
every T atom, so that it is possible but very unlikely for two T atoms to be present in the same
water molecule.)

Since the chemical properties of all isotopes of the same element are identical, the behaviour
oftritium will be the same as that of water or water vapour. It is safe to assume that all heavy
water in nuclear power stations contains tritium. Therefore, whenever heavy water is exposed
to air, some of the heavy water and the tritium it contains will evaporate to cause an airborne
tritium hazard.

The concentration of tritium in the air depends on its concentration in the source water (i.e.,
the water exposed to the air) and the temperature and the relative humidity of the air to which
it is exposed.

Figure 8.3 shows how the tritium concentration in air depends on the concentration in the
source water. This graph assumes that the air is fully saturated with water vapour, and that all
the water vapour came from the tritiated source water. In other words, the committed dose
rates shown will be upper limits - if the air is less than saturated, or if it contains a mixture of
H20 and TDO, the committed dose rate will be lower.

HOW TRITIUM ENTERS AND BEHAVES IN THE BODY

Tritium can enter the body via all three paths of entry mentioned earlier. However, normal and
even accidental uptake is usually a result of inhalation and skin absorption.

Inhalation: Almost all of the tritium that is breathed into the lungs (as water vapour in the
air) is rapidly absorbed into the blood stream.

Skin Absorption: Tritium diffuses through the skin from tritiated water vapour in air, and
from tritiated liquid on the skin. Experience has shown that a person working in an
atmosphere containing tritiated vapour will take in half as much tritium by absorption through
the skin as he will by inhalation (i.e., one-third through the skin and two-thirds via inhalation).

It may seem peculiar that tritium in the form of water vapour in air enters the body through the
skin and lungs, when these organs constantly give off water to the air in the form of
perspiration and water vapour in exhaled breath. Yet, that's not the whole story. Tritium
enters the body by diffusion - the process by which water molecules in air and in the body
constantly move about, bouncing against one another.

Some water molecules diffuse from the air through the skin and the lining of the lungs into the
body, while others diffuse out of them into the air. Water molecules containing tritium diffuse
through the skin and lung lining into the body at approximately the same rate as ordinary
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page8-14

water. Once inside the body, they are carried away from the skin and lungs by the blood,
before having time to diffuse out again. They are so diluted with ordinary water in the body
that, under typical conditions, only one tritiated water molecule will diffuse out of the body
(during tritium exposure) for every few million that diffuse in.

The blood distributes tritiated water equally among all body fluids, just as it does with normal
water. Therefore all tissues in contact with body water will be irradiated by decaying tritium.
These tissues are all the soft tissues in the body, and they make up 90% of the body weight.
Consequently, any tritium in the body will lead to a whole-body dose.

The average person takes in 3 litres of water a day (2 litres directly as fluids, and another litre
as food). Therefore, unless he is going to end up with severe problems, he also has to excrete
3 litres a day. (About half of this comes out as urine and faeces, the rest is by exhalation,
diffusion through the skin, and sweat.) A person who has taken up some tritium and is then
not exposed any more, will therefore get rid of this tritiated water at the rate of 3 litres per
day, while at the same time diluting the remainder with his daily intake of 3 litres of
tritium-free water.

It turns out that after 10 days, half of the tritium in his body has been flushed out. In other
words, the effective half-life for tritium in the body is 10 days. Bear in mind that this figure is
an average - if you drink more than the average person, you will flush the tritium out more
rapidly and so have a shorter effective half-life. A person who drinks less will have a longer
one. (People who drink less will also live longer, or at least it will seem longer.)

THE ALI AND THE DAC

The Annual Limit on Intake for tritiated water is lE9 Bq. This value of the ALI applies to
both the ingestion and the inhalation pathways, because tritiated water enters the body fluids,
regardless of whether you have drunk the tritiated water or breathed it in as water vapour.

The DAC value for tritiated water must make allowance for the fact that a person working in a
tritiated atmosphere will absorb half as much tritium through the skin as he will by inhalation.
In other words, if he inhales 100 Bq of tritium, he will absorb another 50 Bq through the skin.
Therefore, for tritium the DAC is reduced by a factor of 1.5 to allow for this. For tritium, the

ALI (Bq)
DAC=
2400 x 1.5 m'

IE9Bq
DAC=--- 3E5 Bq/m'
3600 m'
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8-15

EXPOSURE AND COMMITTED DOSE

We discussed this topic a few pages ago. It is very important, so it won't hurt to mention it
agam.

Tritium taken into the body during an exposure lasting a couple of hours will still be irradiating
the soft tissues many days later. If you know the tritium concentration in the air in
DACs (1 DAC = 3E5 Bq/m3 ), as well as the length of time spent in this concentration, you can
estimate the dose to the whole body that you will receive. The reasoning is a" follows:

I) We know that the ALI will lead to a whole-body dose of20 mSv.

2) We know that a man working in a concentration of I DAC for 2000 hcurs will take in I
ALI (from the definition of the DAC, page 316).

3) Therefore, exposure to 2000 DAC-h will result in a committed whole··body dose of 20

mSv.

4) Exposure to I DAC will then lead to a committed whole-body dose ratE: of 20 mSv/2000
h = 0.010 mSv/h = 10 ~Sv/h. This is a very useful relationship for Htium exposures.
You've seen it before on page 321.

Every DAC of tritium exposure is equivalent to a

committed whole-body dose rate of 10 IlSv/h.

Remember, you won't receive the dose you commit yourself to until [Link] several weeks,
depending on your effective half-life.

Example: An area has a measured tritium committed dose rate of 80 ~Sv/h. If you were to
work there without respiratory protection (more on this later) for 3 hours, what would be the
committed whole-body dose?

You would receive an exposure of 80 ~Sv/h x 3 h = 240 ~Sv. This calculation is only an
estimate of the dose that you will receive. In practice, it may be high or low by a factor of 2
or more. Why? Well, there are several reasons:

I) It is unlikely that the tritium concentration would remain unchanged for 3 hours, yet your
dose estimate was based on only one measurement. It is obvious that more frequent
measurements would be needed for an accurate estimate.

2) It is assumed that you breathe at the same rate as Reference Man.

3) It is assumed that the effective half-life for tritium in Reference Man (1 0 days) also applies
to you. But you may drink more or less than he does.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page8-16

URINE SAMPLES

The only way of obtaining accurate tritium dose information is by measuring the tritium
content of body fluids.

After tritium is inhaled or absorbed through the skin, it is carried to all parts of the body by the
blood. It distributes itself equally among all body fluids, such as blood, saliva, sweat or urine.
Any of these fluids could be analyzed for tritium. Urine is more convenient to sample than
blood, sweat and tears, so that's what we use. The Health Physics Department measures
tritium-in-urine concentrations routinely and makes sure that the results are entered into your
dose records. Three precautions are required to obtain a urine sample that is truly
representative of the concentration of tritium in body fluids:

1) After an exposure it takes about two hours for the tritium in urine to reach the same
concentration as exists in other body fluids. A sample given half an hour after exposure
may only indicate about 50% as much tritium as one given two hours later. A sample
given one hour after exposure may indicate about 75% of the true value. If you are
exposed near the end of your shift, give a urine sample before leaving work and another
on the next day.

2) Don't wait too long before glvmg a urine sample. Tritium reaches a maximum
concentration about 2 hours after exposure. After that (if there is no further exposure) it
is steadily eliminated from the body with an effective half-life of 10 days Hence a sample
given one day after an exposure will indicate about 93% of the maximum concentration,
and one given four days after will indicate only about 75%.

3) The bladder should be emptied after an exposure, before giving the first sample. This is
especially important if the bladder is almost full at the time of exposure. Otherwise, the
newly formed urine will be diluted with urine already in the bladder, and the indicated
concentration will be lower than that in the rest of the body fluids.

Urine samples may be saved for several days before measurement. The tri tium decay in the
samples depends only on the radioactive half-life (12.3 years). So even in a week there will be
little loss of activity. If you want accurate measurements of the tritium concentration in your
body on your days off, talee a couple of sample bottles home. Note the date of sampling and
turn the samples in to the Health Physics Lab when you come back.

EVALUATION OF DOSE FROM BIOASSAY RESULTS

It can be calculated that a person who has 44 MBq of tritium in his body all the time will
receive 20 mSv of whole-body dose in a year.

Tritium is spread uniformly throughout the body fluids. Reference Man coatains 42 litres of
body fluids. Therefore, a tritium concentration of 0.95 MBqIL maintainedn body fluids will
give you 20 mSv of whole-body dose in a year.

Why 0.95 MBqIL? When you divide 44 MBq of tritium by 42 litres of fluids, you will get
1.05 rather than 0.95 MBqIL. Why the difference? About 1% of the tritium does not appear
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page 8 - 17

in body fluids, but is trapped in the body's cells for long enough to contribute 10% to the
tritium dose. To include this in the assigned dose, we reduce the value from 1.05 to 0.95
MBq/L

Therefore, if you maintain this concentration of tritium in your body fluids for a whole year,
you will receive 20 mSv of whole-body dose in that time. If you maintain this concentration
for one day, your dose for that day will be 20/365 mSv = 0.055 mSv = 55 IlSv. Please realize
that this is quite independent of what your effective half-life actually is, because we said that
you are maintaining this concentration. How? By taking in enough tritium each day to
replace that which is flushed out.

In practice, you will work only a limited amount of time in tritium atmospheres. Between
exposures, the tritium in your body will be eliminated with an effective half-life of 10 days or
so. Therefore, the tritium concentration in your body is not going to remain constant. It will
fluctuate according to the severity of your exposures and the time between them. To keep
track of these variations, you provide urine samples at periodic intervals and certainly after
each exposure. From these samples the average tritium concentration in your body is
calculated. Let's use an example to help you understand how these calculations are done.

In a 2 week period from June I to June 15 you submitted several urine samples for bioassay.
The results were:
June I 0.31 MBq/L
June 2 0.64 MBq/L
June 6 0.50 MBq/L
June 12 0.83 MBq/L
June 15 0.69 MBq/L

The average tritium concentrations for the four periods of time would then be calculated (see
Fig. 84);
(A) (0.31 + 0.64)/2 MBq/L = 0.48 MBq/L (June I - June 2)
(B) (0.64 + 0.50)/2 MBq/L = 0.57 MBq/L (June 2 - June 6)
(C) (0.50 + 0.83)/2 MBq/L = 0.67 MBq/L (June 6 - June 12)
(D) (0.83 + 069)12 MBq/L = 0.76 MBq/L (June 12 - June 15)

We pointed out that 0.95 MBq/L will give you a daily dose of 55 IlSv. Fer period (B), for
example, the dose for the four days will be

55 IlSv/d
0.57 MBq/L x x 4 d = 132 IlSv = 0.13 mSv
0.95 MBq/L

Now work out the dose received for periods (A), (C), and (D).
The formula for the tritium dose is
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page8-18

MBq/L
O.8:.J

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

o
2 o 8 0 12

Time {LJays)

Fig. 8.4. Bioassav Dala

If I did it right, the total for the two week period should be 0.52 mSv (0.03 + 0.13 + 0.23 +
0.13 = 0.52 mSv), and this would be entered into your dose records.

These calculations are done by computer. It looks at the bioassay result, searches the file for
the previous result, spits out the dose to be added to your dose records, and then updates it.
For example, if you give the next sample on June 20, it will look at that and the June IS result
to calculate the dose you received in the five days from June IS to June 20. It will then add
this to your dose records.

If work with significant tritium exposure is planned, and you haven't given a sample recently, it
is wise to give one before the exposure and one after the exposure. The reason for this is
obvious from Fig. 8.5. If your last sample was given on day 9, and you take up tritium on day
20, the computer program will just work out the average concentration for the II days, and
assign you the corresponding dose for that period as shown opposite in (a). If you give a
sample a day or two before you get exposed, as shown in (b) for day 18, the program will not
have to assign any dose to you that you didn't receive ( 0.17 mSv in this example).

MBq/L MBQ/L

D.• D.•

0 .• 0.0

04 0.4

0 .• 02

o u

lime {Days) Time (D8yS)

(a) (b)

Fig. 8.5. Give a Sample Before and After Planned Exposures

Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page 8 - 19

DOSE COMMITMENT

Suppose that you are exposed to tritium so that within a short period of time your tritium-in-
urine concentration reaches 0.95 MBq/L. You will initially be receiving dose at a rate of 55
~Sv per day. If you are removed from work involving further exposure to tritium, the tritium
will be eliminated from your body with an effective half-life of 10 days.

This means that after 10 days the concentration of tritium in your body will have fallen from
0.95 MBq/L to half that. In the same time, your daily dose rate will have been reduced from
55 ~Sv/day to 28 ~Sv/day. Figure 8.6 shows the daily doses for the first 30 days. If these are
added up until all the tritium has been eliminated, the total accumulated dose you will receive
is approximately 0.8 mSv.

We call this the dose to infinity, because in theory it takes an infinite time tc get rid of all the
tritium. In practice, about 90% of the infinity will be received within a month. The infinity
dose is abbreviated as H .

Figure 8.6 assumes an effective half-life of 10 days. If you drink more than the average
person, your effective half-life will be less than 10 days, because you are going to flush the
tritiated water out of your body at a faster rate. For example, if you drink enough (about 5
htres per day) to reduce your effective half-life to 5 days, the tritium will be removed twice as
quickly, and then your infinity dose from 0.95 MBq/L will only be 0.4 mSv instead of 0.8
mSv. If you plot the 5-day curve on Figure 8.6, you will be able to appreciate that the infinity
dose is halved. In fact, the infinity dose from an acute uptake is directly proportional to the
effective half-life.

Daily Dose (uSv)

6 0 . , - - " - - - ' - - - - - - ' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -_ _._--,

50

40

30

20

10

o
o 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 :l8 30
Days After Intake

Fig. 8.6. Daily Doses From an Acute Uptake Resulting

in an Initial Concentration of 0.95 MBq/L
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 21

Tritium Concentration in Urine, MBq/L

1. 2 ;.::.:..:.:..:=..-..:..:.:.---------'-----"--------------,

1.0

0,8

0,6

0,2

o. 0 ~_I_......L_+_-'-+__J_+......L_+_.1.-I___l-+--'--+-L.j-.l.._+_-L-+_'__+......L_+_...l.-+_L..j
o 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 16 20 22 24 26 28 30
Days After Intake

Fig. 8.7. Measured Data Showing the Decrease of

Tritium in Urine (Courtesy ofLittle John)

BIOASSAY UPDATE REPORT

Every day, Bioassay Update Reports are posted in the station. The listing will tell you:

(a) the tritium dose assigned to you from your last sample,
(b) the committed dose, H , yet to come from the last sample submitted.

Fig. 8.8 on the next page is an example of how this works. Let us assume that you gave a
sample at the beginning of the current Monitoring Period (0.22 MBq/L) and one 7 days
later (0.28 MBq/L). The computer will print out:

(a) Dose assigned to you for the 7 days. This is 0.25 x (55/0.95) x 7 = 10 I ~Sv. It will be
shown as 0.10 mSv on the report.

(b) Committed dose. This is calculated by multiplying the concentration of the last sample by
0.84 mSvlMBq/L (i.e., 0.80 mSv for 0.95 MBq/L). In this case, that is 0.28 x 0.84 =
0.24 mSv.

Now you give another sample on day 12. It is 0.30 MBq/L. The next Bioassay Update
Report will reflect this and the printout will show

(a) 0.08 mSv (for the five days from day 7 to day 12).
(b) 0.25 mSv
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
[Link] page 8 - 22

MBq/L MBq/L
0.3
b
b 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

a
a 5 10 15 20 a 5 10 15 20
Time (Days) Time (Days)

area A = 0.10 mSv qrea A = 0.08 mSv

point b = 0.28 MBq/L =
point b 0.30 MBq/L
area C = 0.24 mSV area C = 0.25 mSV

Fig. 8.8. Bioassay Update Calculations

If your sample shows a committed dose greater than 1.00 mSv, you are a5ked to donate a
sample every day until your committed dose drops below 1.00 mSv. The reason for this is so
that we can keep accurate track of the dose you receive.

You can see an example of a Bioassay Update Report on page 466.

PROTECTION AGAINST TRITIUM EXPOSURE

In this lesson we have talked about "unprotected" exposures. By dressing a worker in an

air-supplied plastic suit we can reduce his tritium exposure by a factor of 1C'0 or more. This
subject will be left to the next chapter.

However, once you have been exposed, you can reduce your committed dose by increasing
your fluid intake. Such a course of action may well be recommended for accidental large
uptakes of several mSv committed, but you wouldn't do it routinely. The infamous 1990
tritiated drink incident, when an ex-worker added tritium to a drink cooler, is an example of
this. Eight workers picked up a total of 466 man-mSv of tritium dose through no fault of their
own. They were put on a regime of extra fluid intake under medical supervision: this saved
about 275 man-mSv.

Increasing your fluid intake (say double the fluids for a week or so) will not give you any
problems from a health point of view, but it isn't as easy to do as it sounds. Personally, I've
found that significant increases in my fluid intake tend to give me a ht,adache the next
morning.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 23

PROBLEM SYSTEMS

Now that we understand something about tritium exposure, let us take a look at our problem
systems.

Moderator System

Fig. 8.2 shows that after six years of operation, the tritium concentration in the moderator
heavy water should be around 1000 GBq/kg (it was actually 1050 GBq/kg). Air saturated
with this water at 35 C can give 1500 mSv/h of tritium to an unprotected worker (see Fig.
8.3). People entering moderator system areas should recognize the enormous tritium risk that
can exist there if D 20 leaks are present. To enter these areas without evaluating the tritium
concentration in air is extremely risky and is unforgivable. People working with moderator
water or performing maintenance on moderator D 2 0 systems must wear plastics (Chapter 9).

Primary Heat Transport System

The PHT system generally operates at high temperature and pressure (e.g., 300 C and 10
MPa), which makes it more difficult to prevent leaks. Each Fuelling Machine also spills 1 L of
D 2 0 at each channel visit. Therefore the atmosphere of the Fuelling Machine Vaults and the
Boiler Room can be expected to have levels of tritiated water vapour of 10 - 50 ~Sv/h even
under normal conditions.

REMEMBER: Since the PHT water passes over irradiated fuel bundles, some of which may
be defective, leaks of water vapour from the system may lead to airborne contamination in the
form of radioactive noble gases, iodines and particulates. When anyone of these hazards is
detected in a PHT system area, the possible presence of the other hazards should be
anticipated.

Spills of PHT system water can result in very high localized concentrations of tritiated .water
vapour.

Heavy Water Handling Systems

Work involving the transfer of tritiated water to systems or containers is often associated with
tritium uptakes. High local concentrations of tritium can exist while a conta:ner is being filled
due to venting of excess air from the container. Water spills also occur when lines are being
connected or disconnected. Sampling systems are frequently associated with small spills or
vapour leaks from unsealed containers. Wetting of the skin with spilled heavy water will cause
tritium uptake.

Sponges, mops, etc., used for collecting small heavy water spills must be placed into sealed
containers to prevent evaporation of absorbed tritiated water into the atmosphere.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 24

RADIOIODINES
Several radioactive isotopes of iodine are produced in the fuel as fission products. They are
very volatile and easily escape from fuel with defective zircaloy sheathing. We can expect to
have some radioiodines circulating in the PHT system routinely if efforts aren't made to
remove defective fuel as quickly as possible. Any leakage from the PHT system would then
give rise to a radioiodine hazard.

Although radioiodine exposures are normally insignificant compared to tritium exposures, it is

worthwhile devoting a little time to this subject, because under abnormal conditions the hazard
can be significant.

Radioiodines are an Internal Hazard

If you are standing in a room that has radioiodine in the air, the dose you will receive from
direct beta and gamma radiation striking your body is about 100 times I(:ss than the dose
commitment to the thyroid that you will receive as a result of inhaling the radioiodines and
absorbing them in your body. We therefore consider radioiodines to be an :nternal hazard. If
we control the internal hazard, the dose from external exposure will be negligible.

THE IMPORTANT RADIOIODINES

There are three: 1-131 is the most important, followed by 1-133 and 1-135 in that order.
Table 8.3 on the next page lists the important properties.

There is one important difference between radioiodines and tntlUm. Although both are
produced when the reactor operates, and production of both stops when the reactor shuts
down, the radioiodines gradually decay away over a period of weeks, but the' tritium does not.
For example, if we have been shut down for two weeks, the only radioiodine remaining in the
PHT system is 1-131 (i.e., about one quarter of the original amount). The other radioiodines
will have decayed completely. The tritium concentration in moderator and PHT water on the
other hand will hardly have decayed at all because of its long half-life of 12.3 years.

TABLE 8.3. PROPERTIES OF RADlOIODINES

1-131 1-133 1-135

Radiation Emitted @,Y @,y @,y
Radioactive Half-Life 8.0 d 21 h 6.6 h
Effective Half-Life 7.5d 2Ih 6.6 11
DAC (Bq/m 3) 4E2 3E3 2E4

SOURCES AND LOCATIONS OF RADIOIODINE

Before we discuss what happens to radioiodines in the body after we have inhaled them, let's
look at how they get into the air. There are three basic ways in which radioiodines can leak
into station areas.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8·25

Leakage ofPHT Heavy Water

If we have defective fuel in the core, radioiodines will escape from it into the coolant where
they dissolve. They will exist mainly as elemental iodine (i.e., h molecules) with some organic
iodine present, frequently as methyl iodide (CH31). (The methyl stuff comes from ion
exchange resins in the PHT purification circuits.) If a leak of D2 0 steam occurs, the
radioiodines enter the air and tend to be picked up by dust particles. Most of them will then
exist in particulate form.

Leaks of radioiodines can occur in the following areas of the Station:

I) Fuelling Machine Vaults
2) Fuel Discharge and Transfer Bays
3) Fuelling Machine Valve Stations
4) Fuelling Machine Maintenance Areas
5) Boiler Room
6) PHT Sample Stations

Leakage From Defective Fuel Bundles

Defective fuel bundles in the Spent Fuel Bays will release radioiodines. The radioiodine release
causes volatile hypoiodous acid (HOI) to be produced in the bay water. Airborne activity of
the order of hundreds of~Sv/h ofI-13 I can be expected in the Spent Fuel Discharge Bay area
for several hours after defective fuel bundles have arrived there.

Release From Surfaces of PHT and FIM Components and DZO Recovery Systems

If these systems are opened for maintenance work, high releases of airborne radioiodines can
occur. Welding of PHT and FIM components can cause radioiodines to be released from
surfaces to which they had attached themselves. Open D2 0 recovery systems can cause
significant releases of particulate radioiodine.

HOW RADIOIODINE ENTERS AND BEHAVES IN THE BODY

About half of the radioiodine inhaled is absorbed through the lungs into the blood stream.
Absorption through the skin is negligible compared with inhalation. Roughly 30% of the
radioiodine in the blood stream is deposited in the thyroid gland within 24 hours after the
intake. The remaining radioiodine in the blood stream is eliminated from the body by urine in
a couple of days (in fact it drops to 10% after one day).

Iodine in the thyroid has a biological half-life of 120 days. For 1-131, with a radioactive
half-life of 8 days, the effective half-life is

8 x 120
7.5 days
8 + 120

The effective half-lives of 1-133 and 1-135 are the same as their radioactive half-lives (see
Table 8.3).
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 26

DOSE COMMITMENTS FROM RADIOIODINE

When they do occur, most radioiodine exposures are acute rather than chronic, namely several
tens of [Link]/h for an hour or two rather than a few [Link]/h over a long period of time.

The same principles apply for radioiodine exposures as for tritium. That is, 2000 DAC-h will
cause you to receive a weighted dose HW equal to the annual limit of 20 mSv. Working in an
atmosphere contaminated with I DAC of radioiodine is the same as committing yourself to 10
[Link] for every hour you work there, i.e., I DAC is equivalent to 10 [Link]/h.

Of course, if you are working in an atmosphere contaminated with radioiodines, you will
normally not only be taking in 1-131, but also 1-133 and 1-13 5. For instance, if the air contains
50 [Link]/h ofI-131
20 [Link]/h ofI-133
and 10 [Link]/h ofI-135
this corresponds to 80 J.(Sv/h of radioiodine. If you work in this atmosphere for I h, you will
be committed to 80 J.(Sv of weighted dose from radioiodine.

As with tritium, knowledge of the exposure in J.(Sv/h only gives you an estimate of the dose
you are likely to receive. To measure the dose from radioiodine, we need to know how much
is in the thyroid. Once we know that, we can work out the dose commitment to the thyroid
(HT), and then the committed weighted dose (HW = HTwT)·

You will be relieved to learn that you don't have to give us a thyroid sample. Since all the
radioiodine isotopes emit gamma photons, we can use a scintillation counter to measure how
many gamma photons of what energy are emitted each second from the thyroid gland. This
gives us the activity of each radioisotope. We have two of these thyroid counters at Point
Lepreau.

One is a self-serve thyroid monitor located outside the station Health Physics Lab (see Fig.
8.9). If you know or suspect that you have been exposed to radioiodine, you merely go over
there, rest your chin on the detector and see if a 30 second count causes the scaler to exceed
the limit posted beside the instrument.

Ifnot,O.K If yes, wash your neck and repeat the count (why?). If still yes, inform the Shift
Supervisor and request the deluxe treatment, namely a chair count. You sit in a supremely
comfortable, padded arm chair while the lads in the Health Physics Lab measure your thyroid
activity.
The results from this and follow-up counts will be used to calculate the dose to the thyroid,
HT. This information will be stored in your dose records file. The weighted dose,
H w = HTwT, will also be calculated and added to the whole-body dose in your dose records.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 27

Fig. 8.9. The Self-Serve ThyroidMonitor

REDUCTION OF IODINE DOSE

To perform its functions, the thyroid takes up only a small fraction of a milligram of iodine
from the blood each day. If radioactive iodine is inhaled, it reaches the blood quickly and will
be taken up by the thyroid.

We can reduce the thyroid uptake of radioactive iodine by flooding the blood with stable
iodine just before an exposure or shortly afterwards. The radioiodine will have to compete
with the stable iodine for entry to the thyroid. Since the thyroid can't distinguish between the
two, a smaller fraction of radioactive iodine is taken up. This is commonly known as "thyroid
blocking"; it is a misnomer since the thyroid is never completely blocked. This "thyroid
blocking" (iodine dilution of blood) is done by taking a 130 mg potassium iodide (KI) pill.
These pills are harmless to most people (for instance, potassium iodide is added to ordinary
table salt).
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page 8 - 28

Stable iodine is not able to dislodge radioiodine that has already accumulated in the thyroid.
Therefore, ideally, the KI pill should be taken before the exposure, or if not, the sooner after
the exposure, the better. If taken before the exposure, it will reduce the radioiodine uptake of
the thyroid by more than 98%. After a delay of3-6 hours, it will reduce the dose by 60-30%,
and after 12 hours it does hardly anything for you - i.e., the thyroid has already picked up
almost all of the radioiodine it is going to pick up. For a single exposure, only one pill is
needed to provide adequate protection.

KI should not be used as a substitute for proper respiratory protection. If you know you are
going to be exposed to radioiodine, you should wear a suitable respirator or perhaps an
air-supplied suit. These protective measures will be described in Chapter 9.

KI pills are under the control of the Shift Supervisor. He will issue them to workers who may
have committed themselves to more than 0.5 mSv of weighted dose from a radioiodine
uptake. You should not take KI pills if you suffer from thyroid problems or food-related
allergies (particularly salt).

PARTICULATES

Radioactive particulate materials can exist as dust deposited on a surface or dispersed in the
air. The radioactive particles can be fission products (e.g., Cs-137) or activation products
(e.g., Co-60). The main radiation hazard from particulate forms arises when airborne
particulates are inhaled and collect in the lungs. Even surface dusts can become a lung problem
when they are released from the surfaces to become airborne. Let's take a look at the internal
radiation hazard presented by airborne particulates.

SHORT-LIVED AND LONG-LIVED PARTICULATES

The particulate activity that we occasionally find at Point Lepreau falls into two categories;
short-lived, with half-lives of less than an hour or so, or long-lived with half-lives of several
days and more. This short-lived activity comes from the daughters formed by the decay of
fission product noble gases.

The long-lived activity is normally due to activation products and fission products released
from fuel and D20 systems. The hazards associated with short-lived and long-lived
particulates are quite different. If you inhale equal activities of both, you could be receiving
dose from the long-lived particulates for years, whereas the short-lived particulates will have
decayed within hours. In other words, the long-lived particulates present a much greater
internal hazard than the short-lived particulates. For this reason, we deal very cautiously with
particulates, and treat them all as long-lived unless we know for sure that they are short-lived.

Because short-lived particulates that you have inhaled will deliver dose for only the short
period of time until they have decayed, their DACs tend to be quite high compared to long-
lived particulates. Indeed, if you do the sums, it turns out that for half-lives of less than an
hour or so, the external beta-gamma dose you get from standing in the cloud is generally
higher than the internal dose committed by inhaling the particulates. Therefore, short-lived
particulates are largely an external hazard rather than an internal hazard.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page 8 - 29

SHORT-LIVED PARTICULATES

Short-lived particulates often occur m active areas of the station. The activity is usually due to
rubidium-88 and cesium-138. These two radionuclides are the daughters produced by the
fission product noble gases krypton-88 and xenon-138:

88 V,y 88 ~-,y 88
Kr ) Rb ) Sr
36 37 TII2=18min 38

138 ~-,y 138 ~-,y 138

Xe ) Cs ) Sa
54 55 TII2=32min 38

The ratio ofRb-88 to Cs-138 is usually in the range of 10:1 or so. This mixture has a half-life
of about 20 minutes. In practice, we consider Rb-88 and Cs-138 to be an external hazard and
we don't worry about the internal dose. This is because the internal dose is very hard to
measure for such short-lived activity and it should normally be less than the external dose in
any case. We assess the external hazard with beta and gamma survey meters.

LONG-LIVED PARTICULATES

Here the story is quite different. A significant fraction of the inhaled long-lived particulates
will remain as an internal hazard for a long time.

Long-lived particulates can be any of the following radionuclides:

Ce-144 1-131 Sr-89 Mn-54
Ce-141 Ru-l06 Zn-65 Cr-51
Ba-140ILa-140 Ru-103 Co-60 C-14
Cs-137 Zr-95/Nb-95 Fe-59
Cs-134 Sr-90
They are all beta-gamma emitters except Sr-90 and C-14, which emit betas only.

The intake pathway for these radionuclides that exist in particulate form is inhalation. What
happens to them after they've reached the lungs depends on whether they are transportable or
non-transportable. We've dealt with this before, but it won't hurt to repeat it:

Transportable Radionuclides are relatively soluble in the lung fluid, and are readily
transferred into the blood stream. From there they are transported to the various tissues
where they are deposited. In our list of long-lived particulates, these are typically
transportable: Cs-137, Cs-134, 1-131, Zn-65, Sr-90, Sr-89, and C-14.

Non-Transportable Radionuclides tend to stay in the lungs with biological half-lives of

about one year. Transfer through the lung lining is slow. An appreciable fraction of the
activity is eventually eliminated by travelling up the respiratory tract as phlegm. It is then
swallowed to give a little bit more dose to the gastrointestinal tract on its way out.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page 8·30

THE DAC FOR PARTICULATES

The long-lived particulates are an internal hazard. They have effective half-lives varying from
several days to several years. The short-lived particulates are primarily an external hazard and
those normally found in CANDU stations have a half-life of 20 minutes or so. This should tell
us that the DAC for long-lived particulates will be much more restrictive than for short-lived
particulates.

What do we do in practice to assess the hazards from particulates? We take an air sample
(Chapter 9 describes how this is done). For the time being it is enough to know that sampling
for particulates tells us how much particulate activity is present in the air. We won't know
whether this activity is due to long-lived particulates or short-lived particulates. We therefore
take the cautious approach and assume that it is the more hazardous long-lived particulates.
The long-lived radionuclides (other than radioiodines) that have occasionally been found
present in the air in operating CANDU stations are Co-60, C-14, Cs-134, C:s-137, 2r-95 and
Nb-95. Their corresponding DACs are listed in Table 8.4 opposite.

At Point Lepreau we have taken the approach that all particulate air sample activity is assumed
to be attributable to Co-60. This is a cautious approach. For example, if we take an air
sample and measure the activity to be 1000 Bq/m3 , this could correspond 1:0 anyone of the
following, depending on which radionuclide is responsible:

50 IlSv/h Co-60, 13 IlSv/h Cs-134, 13 IlSv/h Cs-137,

10 IlSv/h 2r-95, 3 IlSv/h Nb-95, 0.5 IlSv/h C-14.

Any mixture of these radionuclides would still correspond to less than 50 ~tSv/h overall. If
we base our protection requirements on the assumption that all particulate activity is due to
Co-60, we will be on the safe side. Therefore

The DAC for unidentified particulate activity is 200 Bq/m3 .

The DACs for the short-lived particulates we normally find (i.e., Rb-88 and Cs-138) are at
least a thousand times larger.

If the particulate activity is identified, then the true committed dose rate can be used. In order
to do this, the sample must be analyzed by gamma spectrometry to determine how much of
each radionuclide is present. This service is available from the Chemistry Lab if required.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 31

TABLE 8.4. DACs OF LONG-LIVED PARTICULATES

TO BE EXPECTED IN CANDU STATIONS.

Radionuclide DAC (Bq/m )

Cb·60. 2E2
Cs-134 8E2
Cs:-B7 8E2
Zr-95 IE3
Nb-95 4E3
C-14 (organic compounds) 2E4

SOURCES AND LOCATIONS OF PARTICULATES

Long-Lived Particulates

Areas related to the fuel transfer system can become contaminated wi"th high levels of
long-lived particulate, particularly after damaged fuel bundles have been handled. High
concentrations corresponding to committed dose rates of 5 mSv/h have be-en measured in a
fuel transfer room at Pickering G. S. Leakage from this room resulted in concentrations
equivalent to 2 mSv/h in a nearby accessible area.

Maintenance tasks like those described below can also cause significant levels of long-lived
airborne particulates:

(a) Replacing spent molecular sieve on closed cycle (D 20) vapour recovery driers can
produce long-lived particulate airborne levels equivalent to almost I mSv/h, primarily due
to fission product Cs-137 and activation product Cs-134. Levels this high are usually the
result of poor work practices.

(b) Maintenance work of a vigorous nature (e.g., sanding, machining, welding) on

components that have been jn a reactor system (e.g., pump impellers, seals), has
frequently resulted in wide-spread particulate contamination due to long-lived fission and
activation products. Levels of tens of I-tSv/h have occurred under these conditions.

(c) Radioiodine in the form of particulate occurs when radioiodine escapes to the
atmosphere and adheres to dust particles. Fuel transfer systems are a particularly
common source of this hazard.

(d) Work activity with loose surface contamination present will inevitably result m
resuspension of active material to form airborne particulate contamination.

Short-Lived Particulates

We know that short-lived particulate activity is mainly due to Rb-88 and Cs··138 and that this
form of particulate occurs quite frequently. Any leak in the PHT system can result in a spread
of short-lived activity throughout the entire Reactor Building.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Intemal Radition Hazards
J.u. Bumham page 8 - 32

For example, wide-spread levels of short-lived particulates throughout the Reactor Building
were found when a D20 collection tank serving the fuelling machines was vented to
atmosphere. This caused general fields of 50 mGy/h beta and 10 mGy/h gamma in the Reactor
Building basement. Even at the Equipment Airlock they were still at 10% of these values.
This problem was solved by re-routing the tank ventilation to the contaminated exhaust
system.

The exposure of recently failed irradiated fuel bundles to air during passage through the fuel
transfer system results in high localized air concentrations of short-lived particulates.
Remember that short-lived particulates present an external radiation hazard, not an internal
hazard. The external hazard is measured with beta and gamma survey meters.

CARBON-14

In February, 1985, Ontario Hydro had a nasty surprise while changing the pressure tubes in
Pickering A Units 1 and 2. A radionuc1ide that their interzonal monitors could not detect was
found all over the station. Contamination was relatively widespread and was even detected in
some employees' homes. This radionuclide was carbon-14.

Physical Properties

C-14 emits low energy beta radiation (Emax =' 156 keV); there is no gamma emission. The
half-life is 5730 years.

C-14 is produced whenever water or air is exposed to neutrons:

7 14
O+n--~) C+a (moderator and PHT water)
8 6

4 14
N+n------'» C+p (air)
7 6

Another radionuclide that is produced by the neutron irradiation of air is argon-41. It often
signals air contamination in systems where we don't want any air, because there will be a rapid
increase in gamma fields caused by Ar-41. Once the reactor is shut down, the argon will
decay with its half-life of I .8 hours.

C-14, on the other hand, slowly builds up in systems that are contaminated with air, and it
won't decay away when the reactor is shut down. Since C-14 doesn't emit gammas, it doesn't
increase the gamma fields. C-14 contamination should be suspected in in-core gas systems
that could be contaminated with air.
C-14 is of concern: it is hard to detect, and we can't depend on it being mixed with other
radionuc1ides that are easier to detect. At Point Lepreau, contamination in one particular job
was over 99% C-14.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 33

Detection of Carbon-14

You need an instrument with a window thin enough to allow the low energy beta particles to
enter the detector. We have several of these, of which you'll normally use four:

Instrument Efficiency
Herfurth Full-Body Monitor about 15%
Herfurth Hand & Shoe Monitor about 15%
Nuclear Enterprises Frisker (Exit to Bridge) about 15%
Eberline Frisker about 4%

As you can see, there isn't much chance that C-14 contamination will escape detection at Point
Lepreau. In fact, the Herfurth monitors were purchased as a direct result of the Pickering
expenence.

If you suspect that some contamination is C-14, you can use this test:
I. Measure the count rate with one of the 15% efficient instruments listed above.
2. Place a piece of paper between the contamination and the detector, and measure the
count rate again.
If the count rate in (2) was only 10% of that in (I), you are probably dealing with almost pure
C-14.
Behaviour ofCarbon-14 in the Body

The behaviour of C-14 in the body is strongly influenced by its chemical form. At one
extreme, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, because of their short retention time in the
body, have DACs that are less restrictive than tritium. For C-14 in organic compounds, the
DAC is 2E4 Bq/m3 , and that's the value we use, because it is the most restrictive.

BIOASSAY

Before you work in areas contaminated with airborne activity, you must assess the anticipated
exposure. How this is done will be described in the next chapter. However, this assessment is
only an estimate. We won't be able to tell how much activity you have talcen up until after the
exposure. The measurement of your uptake is known as bioassay.

BIOASSAY is the detennination of the type,

quantity and location of radioactive material in the
body by direct measurement or by analysis of
materials excreted from the body.

As you might realize, from the definition above, there are two methods:

I. Excretion Analysis (urine and faeces)

2. Whole-Body Counting.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 34

EXCRETION ANALYSIS

Urine Analysis

A fraction of the body content of a radionuclide is excreted in urine each day. By analyzing
the radionuclide content of urine, we can estimate the body content for some radionuclides if
we know the fraction that is excreted each day. Unfortunately, this fraction is usually not well
known. The main problem with urine analysis is that only transportable radionuclides are
excreted in substantial amounts and in a predictable manner in urine.

Many inhaled radionuclides are non-transportable. For these, a very small and highly variable
daily fraction reaches the blood stream from the lung. This makes it very unreliable and
sometimes impossible to estimate body contents from urine analysis. However, it is possible
to confirm the presence of the non-transportable radionuclides and to identitY them.

Tritium represents a special case because it is uniformly distributed in body water. The
concentration in urine is the same as in all the other body fluids, so the daily dose rate and the
dose commitment may be estimated directly from the urine concentration.

Tritium-in-urine analysis is done by liquid scintillation counting. The normal sampling period
for people routinely exposed (i.e., those with a committed dose greater than 0.01 mSv) is one
week. This rather short sampling period is necessary because the effective half-life of tritium
is only 10 days.

We take advantage of the routine tritium bioassay program to look for the presence of other
beta-gamma emitters in urine. Tritium has a rather low beta energy (Emax = 18 keY), and
spare channels of the pulse height analyzer in the liquid scintillation counter are used to
monitor the beta energy region above 18 ke V. The presence of transportable radionuclides
such as C-14, 1-131, Sr-90, Sr-89, Cs-137 and Cs-134 is looked for in these "high energy"
channels. If we see anything other than tritium, we will call you in for a whole-body count.

On rare occasions, large volume urine samples may be analyzed by gamma spectrometry or
radiochemistry to identitY and estimate radionuclide contents with much better sensitivity. But
even so, this will still only measure what comes out of the body, not what's in it.
Radionuclides that are excreted very slowly can be very hard to detect.

Faecal Analysis

This is not generally done at CANDU stations. It is very messy and doesn't tell us much.
Faecal analysis is more useful for ingested material, and ingestion is not a significant pathway
in our case. Inhaled transportable nuclides will largely be eliminated in urine; inhaled
non-transportable nuclides will be deposited in the lung You will recall that from the lung
they are eventually brought up as phlegm to be swallowed and show up in faeces. Normally it
is much better to look for non-transportable radionuclides in the lungs with a whole-body
counter. Faecal analysis is superior only when the gamma energy is so low that one cannot
detect the gamma emitter in the lungs, or when we suspect that non-transportable pure beta
emitters are present (such as C-14 particulates). Other than C-14, internal hazards in this
category are rare. This is good news for the folks in the Health Physics Lab.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8·35

WHOLE-BODY COUNTING

In whole-body counting, the amounts of gamma emitting radionuclides in the whole body are
measured directly using a sodium iodide scintillation detector. To reduce the background and
hence increase the sensitivity of the measurement, both the detector and the subject are
shielded, usually with lead.

Three versions of a whole-body counter are common: a scanning type, a chair type, and a
stand-up type.

In the older scanning type, the person to be monitored lies on a motor-driven bed which passes
slowly under a single large sodium iodide detector enclosed in a lead-shielded housing. The
time for a complete scan from head to toe is typically around 10 minutes. The counting data
are analyzed by gamma spectrometry.

We have a chair counter as shown on page 217. It has three detectors; one looks at the
thyroid, one at the lungs and one at the gut. The subject sits in the chair, and the counts seen
by each detector are accumulated in separate spectra. All the data are processed by computer.
After a 5 minute count, we can normally identify radionuclides and assess their quantity in the
thyroid, lung and gut often to much better than I% of that quantity that would cause you to be
irradiated at the annual limits. If real activity (other than the potassium-40 present in
everybody) is detected, we would use the results from the whole-body counter to calculate the
doses to the target tissue, and then enter these doses into your dose records. Figure 8.10
shows a typical set of lung and thyroid spectra obtained with our chair counter.

The stand-up type of body counter is currently in vogue. It is available with sodium iodide or
germanium detectors. You stand in front of the shielded detectors for a minute, and then have
the computer analyze the spectrum and cough out the results. With just a few simple inputs
from you, it can be used as a self-serve unit Health Physics would update the dose records,
and follow up any non-zero body count results.

PROS AND CONS OF WHOLE-BODY COUNTING

The advantages of whole-body counting are:

1) Whole-body counting measures body contents directly, as contrasted with indirect

inferences from excreta measurements (urine and faecal analyses).

2) Non-transportable radionuclides in the lung do not pose a problem for whole-body

counting as they do for urine analysis, provided that the gamma photons are sufficiently
energetic to be able to reach the detector.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal RadWan Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 36

The disadvantages of whole-body counting are:

I) It cannot be used in general for radionuclides that do not emit gamma radiation (pure
beta emitters). The only important pure beta emitters to be found at a nuclear station are
H-3, Sr-90 and C-14. As part of the routine H-3 bioassay program, the presence ofC-14
in urine is automatically screened. The strontium isotopes are not present in significant
amounts in the station. Typical Cs-137/Sr-90 ratios are 50/1 to 100/1. If a significant
amount ofCs-137 is found by whole-body counting, the individual will be requested to
submit a large volume urine sample for radiostrontium analysis.

2) The whole-body counter cannot distinguish between radioactivity inside the body
(genuine internal contamination) and external contamination on the skin surface or in
hair. This can lead to counting results that are somewhat on the high side, i.e.,
overestimation of the amount of internal contamination. Also, it is difficult to calibrate a
whole-body counter, because of differences in organ sites, body size and shape, etc.
However, a whole-body counter has high sensitivity so that negative results (i.e., no
counts above background) definitely indicate the absence of internal contamination.

.......TllJ,ftO••"'T... __ ,n-
IiIOti _.-roTS. IN D.I _ _ AF'TW:II ilI_£1Il
COUNT DAT1I!:' • •-OlI-lit TMYROtCl 8P'IOICT .......

• 00

5
1 '00

WATTS,AOeur A WOC.... 7Of

flOe WATTS IN DISPOS ""TEA IHOWU
CO\JHTI)ATl'U-Ot-lt LUNGS SPECTRUM

1.0

200

.,,
0

"
'" A
• 0 100 1000 1000 2GOO 2.00

ENERGY
(k. V)

Fig. 8.10. Typical Thyroid and Lung Spectra

From Our Whole-Body Counter
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 37

Table 8.5 below summarizes the routine bioassay done at Point Lepreau.

TABLE 8.5. ROUTINE BIOASSAY AT POINT LEPREAU

Radionuclide Bioassay Method Frequency

Tritium Urine analysis by liquid Every 28 days,
scintillation counting but daily for I mSv Hw
and weekly for 0.01 mSv Hw
Radioiodine a) High energy channel As for tritium
screening as part of
routine H-3 program
b) Self-serve thyroid Individual preference
monitor
c) Whole-body counter When required for accurate
thvroid dose assignment
Gamma emitters a) Whole-body counting Selected people in exposed
(Co-60, Cs-137, groups, or as called for by b)
Zr-95, etc.)
b) High energy channel As for tritium
screening as part of
routine H-3 orogram
Carbon-14 Medium energy channel As for tritium
screening as part of the
routine H-3 orogram
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 38

SUMMARY

Radiation sources that can enter the body are called internal hazards. They demand more
precautions than external hazard~, because
1) all radiationfrom internal sources can interact with tissue,
2) most radionuclides accumulate in certain organs, called target tissues, which will
receive higher doses than Ihe rest ofthe body,
3) internal sources expose you continuously,
4) it is difficult to increase their rate ofelimination,
5) except for tritium, it is difficult to estimate the dose.

Radiation sources can enter the body in three ways: inhalation, ingestion, and absorption
through skin or wounds. The first is the most imporlant. Internal sources are removed by
biological elimination and radioactive decay with an effective half-life Te.

The Annual Limit on Inlake (ALl) is the activity (Bg) of a radionuclide that would commit
you to 20 mSv ofweighted dose (HwJ.

If you work in the Derived Air Concentration (DAC) of a radionuclide for 2000 hours, you
will take in one ALI of that radionuclide. One DAC is equivalent to a commitled dose rate of
10 j.1Sv/h.

Tritium is produced whenever heavy water is irradiated by neutrons. When exposed to air,
tritiated heavy water leads to airborne hazards in the form of Iritiated water vapour. It
enters the body by inhalation and absorplion through the skin, and mixes with body fluids. A
concentration of O. 95 MBq/L [Link] in the body will deliver 20 mSv of whole-body dose if
it is maintained for a year, but only 0.8 mSv (Ihe infinity dose) if il is eliminated with a 10
day half-life. Dose is assessed by analyzing the tritium concentration in urine samples.

Radioiodines (1-131, 1-133, 1-135) are volatile jJ, remitting fission products. Defective fuel
allows them 10 escape into PHT water, from which they can become an airborne hazard
through PHT system leaks. The targel tissue is the thyroid gland. Radioiodine uptakes can
be detected with the self-serve thyroid monitor - accurate measurements are made with the
whole-body counler in Ihe Health Physics Lab. A KI pill taken soon after the exposure can
prevenl Ihe majority of the radioiodine laken into the bodyfrom reaching the thyroid.

Particulates are radionuclides attached to dust particles. We classify them as long-lived or

shorl-lived, depending on whether Iheir half-life is grealer or less than 30 minutes.
Short-lived particulates are an external hazard; long-lived particulates are an internal
hazard If you don't know what they are, you treat Ihem as unidentified particulales wilh a
DAC 0.1 200 Bq/m 3 . Long-lived particulates are classified as transportable or
non-transportable. The former are soluble in lung fluid, and transported to their target
tissue; the latter tend to remain in the lungfor about a year.

Bioassay is the determination of radionuclides in the body by direct measurement or by

excretion analysis. Urine bioassay is done routinely for Irilium, and is also able to detect
other radionuclides thaI may be analyzed with Ihe whole-body counter.
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J.u. Burnham page 8 - 39

PROBLEMS

I. What is the difference between external and internal hazards?

2. Why do we tend to be much more cautious about internal hazards than external hazards?

3. Name the routes by which radioactive material is unlikely to enter your body at Point
Lepreau.

4. What is meant by Target Tissue?

5. Tritium has a Tr of 12 years and a Tb of 10 days. Calculate the effective half-life T e .

6. Ru-I03 (Tr = 40 days) has been deposited in your lungs. Repeated chair counts indicate
that the Te is about 30 days. What is the biological half-life in the lung?

7. What is the difference between intake and uptake? Is uptake always less than intake?

8. Which of the following statements are correct?

a) The ALI is given in units of dose.
b) The ALI is given in units of dose per year.
c) The ALI is given in Bq.
d) All the dose from I ALI will be delivered within one year.
e) The ALI for inhalation is usually smaller than that for ingestion.
£) None of the above.

9. Which of the following exposures will result in an intake of 0.1 ALI?

a) 100 DACs for 10 hours,
b) 50 DACs for 2 hours,
c) I DAC for 20 hours,
d) 0.1 DAC for 200 hours,
e) none of the above.

10. You have been exposed to tritium and radioiodine, and from each of these exposures you
have committed yourself to a weighted dose of I mSv. Obviously, the total weighted
dose is 2 mSv, but what is the committed dose to the thyroid?

II. You work for 4 hours in an area containing 100 J.!Sv/h of tritium, 0.2 mSv/h gamma and
0.1 mSv/h beta radiation. What deep and shallow dose will you receive as a result of this
work?

12. You accidentally swallow 50 mL of moderator water with a tntmm concentration

corresponding to 10 years of operation (see p. 323). How many ALls did you take in, and
what dose commitment would you expect from this?
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8 - 40

13. It was mentioned on page 338 that wetted skin will absorb water. In fact, for each square
metre of wetted skin, the skin will absorb about I gram. Assume that you are working in
the Moderator Enclosure fixing a leak, and your right hand and forearm get splashed with
moderator water (the same water as in #12). What dose commitment might you expect?

14. Two of you are working in 30 ~lSv/h of tritium for one hour, but your friend is working
much harder than you, and as a result breathes twice as much as you. What dose
commitment would you expect each of you to get?

15. You worked in a tritiated atmosphere for two hours and gave a urine sample immediately
afterwards, just before the end of your shift. You gave another one when starting work
next day. The results were surprising: 0.12 mSv committed dose for the first sample and
0.17 mSv for the second. How come?

16. Workers are required to give a urine sample on their last day at Lepreau. If the tritium
concentration of such a sample was found to be 9.5E4 BqlL, what committed dose does it
represent? Would this dose actually be assigned to that person?

17. Why is the tritium concentration in the moderator water so much higher than that in the
PHT system, and why do we take considerable trouble to ensure that moderator water is
kept out of the PHT system?

18. By drawing a smooth curve through the data points of Fig. 8.7 (on page 334), estimate
the effective half-life of tritium in the donor of these samples, and calculate his dose from
tritium for the week starting on day 10.

19. In your last two-week monitoring period you had the following bioassay results:
Day I 9.5E4 BqlL, Day 2 3.8E5 BqlL,
D~5 5m5B~ ~13 2%5B~
Calculate the tritium dose you would have been assigned for this period. The Bioassay
Update Report published on day 15 has a listing for "committed dose". What will this
values be?

20. You have an acute (one shift) Jptake of 0.80 mSv of tritium committed. By how much
would you expect your tritium-in-urine concentration to increase?

21. Would your answer to the above question be the same if you were exposed to 10 IlSv/h
of tritium over 80 hours (2 weeks)? Explain.

22. Under what circumstances could you expect a radioiodine hazard to exist in the Reactor
Building?

23. Which exposure gives you the greatest risk: 200 IlSv/h ofI-13I, 200 IlSv/h ofI-133, or
200 IlSv/h ofI-135?

24. What about 200 IlSv/h of tritium and 200 IlSv/h I-13I?
Radiation Protection Chapter 8: Internal Radition Hazards
J. U. Burnham page 8-41

25. Roughly 100 g of dry dulse contain the same amount of iodine (130 mg) as a KI pill. Will
this amount of dulse have the same "thyroid blocking" effect as one KI pill?

26. What should you do if the self-serve thyroid monitor indicates activity in your thyroid?

27. Stable iodine is used for "thyroid blocking". Which of the following mechanisms IS
responsible for the blocking action?
a) Flooding the blood with stable iodine causes the body to excrete iodine in the urine at
a much faster rate so that all radioactive iodine is excreted in 2-3 days and therefore
little reaches the thyroid.
b) The stable iodine completely satisfies the thyroid's need for iodine, thereby filling it
completely so that no radioactive iodine is taken up.
c) The stable iodine dilutes the radioactive iodine in the blood, so that a much smaller
fraction of iodine taken up by the thyroid is radioactive.

28. You have taken an air sample in the Reactor Building. It has a beta/gamma activity
equivalent to 500 Bq/m3, but you have no idea what the radionuclides are. What
committed dose rate does this represent? If you wanted more specific information, how
would you get it?

29. What distinguishes transportable from non-transportable particulates, and which category
is generally more hazardous?

30. What is meant by bioassay?

31. Why do we analyze urine samples routinely, but never bother with faeces?

32. There is a reason why the whole-body counter at Point Lepreau is adjacent to the Change
Room. Do you know what it is?

33. Although the presence of 1-131 will be detected in liquid scintillation counting of urine
samples, this is not an effective way of screening for 1-131 uptakes. Why not?