Estimating the Internal Dose for 131I Production Workers From Air Sampling Method.

Besides the most common methods of internal dose assessment from inhaled 131I, that are thyroid monitoring and urine analysis, air sampling is a possible way but rarely used for dose estimate. This study aimed to focus on the utilisation of portable air sampler to estimate the internal dose for workers working at 131I production facility. In addition, internal dose estimated from urine analysis at the same time was carried out for comparison. Based on this research, it was found that air monitoring can be done efficiently as urine monitoring if the following conditions are met: (1) the indoor areas are not large, (2) sampling sites need to be placed as near breathing zone as possible and (3) the time-micro-environment patterns of monitored workers are collected carefully.

Using smartphone as a motion detector to collect time-microenvironment data for estimating the inhalation dose.

During the production of iodine-131 from neutron irradiated tellurium dioxide by the dry distillation, a considerable amount of (131)I vapor is dispersed to the indoor air. People who routinely work at the production area may result in a significant risk of exposure to chronic intake by inhaled (131)I. This study aims to estimate the inhalation dose for individuals manipulating the (131)I at a radioisotope production. By using an application installed on smartphones, we collected the time-microenvironment data spent by a radiation group during work days in 2015. Simultaneously, we used a portable air sampler combined with radioiodine cartridges for grabbing the indoor air samples and then the daily averaged (131)I concentration was calculated. Finally, the time-microenvironment data jointed with the concentration to estimate the inhalation dose for the workers. The result showed that most of the workers had the annual internal dose in 1÷6mSv. We concluded that using smartphone as a motion detector is a possible and reliable way instead of the questionnaires, diary or GPS-based method. It is, however, only suitable for monitoring on fixed indoor environments and limited the targeted people.