title: Assessment of alpha activity of building materials commonly used in West Bengal, India.
abstract: This paper, reports for the first time, an extensive study of alpha activity of all widely used building materials (plaster of Paris, stone chips, marble, white cement, mosaic stone, limestone, sand, granite, cement brick, asbestos, red brick, cement tile, ceramic tile and ceramics) in West Bengal, India. The alpha activities have been measured using Solid State Nuclear Track Detector (SSNTD), a very sensitive detector for alpha particles. The samples were collected from local markets of Kolkata. The measured average alpha activities ranged from 22.7+/-2.5 to 590.6+/-16.8Bqkg(-1). The alpha activity of ceramic tiles was highest and provides additional data to estimate the effect of environmental radiation exposure on human health.
authors: School of Studies in Environmental Radiation and Archaeological Sciences, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, India. dipakghosh_in@yahoo.com
authors: Dipak
authors: D
authors: Ghosh
authors: Argha
authors: A
authors: Deb
authors: Sukumar
authors: S
authors: Bera
authors: Rosalima
authors: R
authors: Sengupta
authors: Kanchan Kumar
authors: KK
authors: Patra
mesh_terms: D000512:Alpha Particles; D003252:Construction Materials; D007194:India; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity