Natural radionuclide concentrations of cements in Izmir and dose assessments

The growing demand of electric power and the large domestic deposites of lignite coal have made coal-fired plants grow in number in Aegean Region of Turkey. Some of this coals like Yatagan lignites are known to have high uranium concentration (315-405Bq/kg for coal 746-1076Bq/kg for collected fly ash). The stockpiles of fly ash of these power plants are readily available for industrial uses as in the case of cement production. Therefore to assess the doses arising from building materials especially from cement in the cities of Aegean Region a project has been started beginning from Izmir. The traces of radium, potassium and thorium in 45 cement samples which are collected from building constructions in Izmir have been analysed by gamma spectrometry. The mean concentrations of Ra-226, Th-232 and K-40 were determined ?he indoor radionuclide doses were calculated using the mean concentrations found in the measurements of this work. The results were compared with those given for other countries.