Investigation of radon and its progeny in ceramic cooking dishes

Recently, the concentration of radioactivity in the ceramic cooking dishes is found to exceed the reference level values. Therefore, there is a need to measure the radon concentration in ceramic cooking dishes, especially radon gas inhalation which is considered to be the second largest cause of lung cancer.

In this work, a collection of 19 different kinds of ceramic cooking dishes is measured using CR-39 SSNTD (Solid State Nuclear Track Detector).

The obtained results showed that the highest value of radon concentration is found to be 23.07 ± 1.44 Bq/m3, 148.41± 5.99 Bq/m3 and 783.03± 35.96 Bq/m3for high quality, low quality and handmade ceramic cooking dishes, respectively. Indicating that the radon concentration for 18.19% of handmade ceramic cooking dishes is exceeded the internationally accepted levels 600 Bq/m3.

All values of radon concentration for handmade ceramic cooking dishes are found to be higher than the measured values for high quality and low-quality manufactured ceramic cooking dishes. In addition, the mean values of annual effective doses of handmade ceramic cooking dishes are found to be varied from 2.20 to 22.47mSv/y, exceeding the internationally accepted action level from ICRP 2007 agency (1). Hence, this study recommends that care must be taken when using the handmade ceramic cooking dishes.