Biography:
1) Dr. (PostDoc), Fabrizio Ambrosino
1) Dr. (PostDoc), Fabrizio Ambrosino
2) Department of Mathematics and Physics, University of Campania “L. Vanvitelli”, Caserta - Italy; National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Napoli - Italy.
3) Research interests: environmental radiation; environmental monitoring; environment development; applied physics; radioactivity; radon gas; ionizing radiation; radioactive pollution; numerical analysis; time series analysis; neural networks; machine learning; montecarlo simulation; software development; data processing; geogenic phenomena; earth rotation (length of the day - LOD); sustainable development; radiation protection; radiological characterization; landfill leachate contamination; applicability of isotope techniques.
Title:Radiological characterization of Lo Uttaro landfill site (Caserta province) and of building materials from the Campania region (Southern Italy)
Title:Radiological characterization of Lo Uttaro landfill site (Caserta province) and of building materials from the Campania region (Southern Italy)
Keyworks: building materials; environmental analysis and monitoring; environmental materials; environmental pollution; environmental protection; radiological characterization.
Abstract. The present contribution reports on the environmental investigation plan carried out to evaluate: (i) the radiological contamination in the municipal landfill Lo Uttaro, district of Caserta (Campania region, Southern Italy); (ii) the radiological characterization of natural radioactivity content in 31 natural building materials representative of the same Campania region. The (i) investigation focused primarily on the measurements of the equivalent dose rate along the perimeter of the landfill, which results show average values lower than the population dose limit due to natural background radiation. Then, several samples of soil, groundwater and leachate representative of the subsoil of the study area were collected and the radionuclides were measured by gamma spectrometry. The results of these measurements show the absence of artificial radionuclides, except for small amounts of 137Cs due to nuclear disasters occurring in the last 50 years on Earth, and the mere presence of 40K and other natural radionuclides belonging to natural radioactive chains of 238U, 235U and 232Th. The (ii) investigation focused primarily on the determination of the radioactivity content (226Ra, 232Th and 40K) of the 31 building material samples. Commonly-used radiation hazard indexes were computed to evaluate the human exposure to gamma radiation. The results are compared to limit values established by the 2013/59/Euratom Directive and by UNSCEAR: the comparison proves the high natural radioactivity content and the radiation exposure hazard coming from some samples of volcanic origin. Then, the emanated fraction and the exhalation rate of the 222Rn and of the 220Rn from the investigated materials were also measured the alpha spectrometry of the ionized radon daughters. The results show interesting differences about the radioactivity content and the capacity to generate radon, among the different materials. The entire work is of ever-growing public interest because concerns the field of risk associated to environmental radiation. This work contributes to enriching knowledge about environmental radioactivity and the importance of the constant monitoring.
