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Effect of soil’s porosity and moisture content on radon and thoron exhalation rates

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Abstract

We study the variation of radon mass exhalation rate (Jm) and thoron surface exhalation rate (Js) with soil’s porosity and moisture content using a scintillation based monitor-Smart RnDuo. Assessment were carried out in around 40 soil samples collected from four villages of East Khasi Hills district, Meghalaya, India. Results revealed that, both Jm and Js shows no convincing trend of variation with porosity, while with respect to moisture content, a sporadic increase is observed in the values of Jm and Js up to certain level, beyond which a decreasing trend is observed; accountable reasons are discussed in the manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

Authors are deeply grateful to Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS) for providing financial help in the form of project bearing Sanction No. 36(4)/14/45/2016-BRNS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, 793022, India

    A. Pyngrope, A. Saxena & A. Khardewsaw

  2. Department of Physics, Don Bosco College, Tura, 794001, India

    Y. Sharma

  3. Radiological Physics and Advisory Division, BARC, Mumbai, 400085, India

    B. K. Sahoo

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  1. A. Pyngrope
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  2. A. Saxena
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Pyngrope, A., Saxena, A., Khardewsaw, A. et al. Effect of soil’s porosity and moisture content on radon and thoron exhalation rates. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 331, 1975–1984 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-021-08168-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-021-08168-y

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