Preliminary Evaluation of the Activity Concentration Limits for Consumer Goods Containing NORM

Background: To protect the public from natural radioactive materials, the ‘Act on safety control of radioactive rays around living environment” was established in Korea. There is an annual effective dose limit of 1 mSv for products, but the activity concentration limit for products is not established yet. Materials and Methods: To suggest the activity concentration limits for consumer goods containing NORM, in this research, we assumed the “small room model” surrounding the ICRP reference phantom to simulate the consumer goods in contact with the human bodies. Using the Monte Carlo code MCNPX, we evaluate the effective dose rate for the ICRP reference phantom in a small room with dimension of phantom size and derived the activity concentration limit for consumer goods. Results and Discussion: The consumer goods have about 1600, 1200 and 19000 Bq·kg-1 for 226Ra, 232Th and 40K, and the activity concentration limits are about six times comparing with the values of building materials. We applied the index to real samples, though we did not consider radioactivity of 40K, indexes of the some samples are more than 6. However, this index concept using small room model is very conservative, for the consumer goods over than index 6, it is necessary to reevaluate the absorbed dose considering real usage scenario and material characteristics. Conclusion: In this research, we derived activity concentration limits for consumer goods in contact with bodies and the results can be used as preliminary screening tool for consumer goods as index concept.