Radioactivity in Building Materials of Pudukkottai Geological Region, Tamil Nadu, India

Since Pudukkottai district is naturally endowed with variety of building material resources such as stones, bricks, sand etc. These building materials are also exported to other district. So analysis of natural radioactivity in these building materials is important before these put into construction purpose. WHO reported that indoor radon accumulation from soil and building materials is one of the major factors for human lung disorders. The main objective of the present study is to measure Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) in building materials of Pudukkottai and to assess the possible radiological risk. A total of 118 samples of building materials have been investigated for ²³⁸U, ²³²Th, and ⁴⁰K employing a 3″ × 3″ NaI(Tl) detector. The mean Ra_eq activity of the building materials maintained the following descending order: Stone (299 ± 206 Bq kg^‑1) > Soil (145 ± 54 Bq kg^‑1) Sand and Cement (117 ± 28 Bq kg^‑1) > Brick (110 ± 26 Bq kg^‑1). The present study identified seven stone quarries recorded Ra_eq higher than the permissible limit (>370 Bq kg^‑1) as set by UNSCEAR, 2008. All other building materials mined and used from this district recorded low Ra_eq activity. Important radiological parameters such as ADRA, I_γ and H_in were also calculated. The results indicated that there is no elevated radioactivity observed in the studied materials. Therefore, it is concluded that the building materials used in the above mentioned district will not pose any hazard in terms of radioactivity.