| NUKLEONIKA 2005, 50(Supplement 1):s25-s27
BIOACCUMULATION OF 226Ra IN THE PLANTS GROWING
NEAR URANIUM FACILITIES
Richard Tykva, Eva Podracká
Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry,
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic,
2 Flemingovo Str., CZ-166 10 Prague 6, Czech Republic
Radiopollution of soils in the close neighbourhood of a uranium mine and a uranium mill was
characterized using measurement of specific 226Ra activity by gamma spectrometry. It was found
that it ranged from values lower than the admissible limit of 0.2 Bq g-1 of soil
(averaged over the first 15 cm below the ground surface) to values more than one hundred times higher.
Bioaccumulation of 226Ra from the measured soils in plant species which were naturally growing on
the analysed sites was analysed. The specific 226Ra activity of aboveground dry plant parts
ranged within two orders of magnitude. Currently occurring and simply collected Mentha piperita
was found to be useful for biomonitoring of soils.
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