Semi-quantitative analysis of leaf surface contamination by radioactivity from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident using HPGe and imaging plate

Abstract

After the nuclear power plant accident at Fukushima Daiichi on 11 March 2011, green-leaves from trees, dead-leaves and grass on ground were collected from March to June 2011 in Japan. Radioactive concentrations were measured by a high purity germanium detector. Five radionuclides including ^129mTe, ¹³²Te, ¹³¹I, ¹³⁴Cs and ¹³⁷Cs were detected. The fission product concentration of the dead-leaves was higher than those of the green-leaves in many cases. The highest concentration observed was found on the dead-leaves collected at Iwaki, 60 km far from Fukushima Daiichi. A total activity of 2,000 Bq g⁻¹ was measured for all 5 radionuclides. Clear images of radioactivity of the highly contaminated leaves were obtained with an imaging plate (IP) after <24 h exposure time without using a shielded box. The photostimulated luminescence values (PSL) of leaves arranged on half size of IP were roughly in proportion to their activities except for the low activity samples. Semi-quantitative analysis was possible by using PSL values with a large region of interest of half size of IP, because the radioactivity released in the case of the nuclear power plant accident was uniform in the early days.