• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.163-170
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• 2015

The interest of the people in the radioactive contamination of the water has increased significantly and the study about analysis and management of radioactive materials are being actively conducted. And monitoring spots have been expanded to the range of public water as well as drinking water by publishing the rule of drinking water quality standards and examination in the Environmental Enforcement Ordinance No. 553 of Korea. In this study, US EPA was investigated as the foreign advanced cases and the way that is appropriate for the Korea was sought by analyzing investigate radionuclide, interval and management. As a result, in the selection part of investigate radionuclide, geological survey, status of nuclear power plants and the presence of the use of artificial radionuclides of the Korea should be investigated and additionally after the selection of a few radionuclides, the systems should be extended to cover all possible radionuclides by considering radioactive pollution levels in humans may be exposed due to the annual drinking water. In the part of the investigate interval, the concept(MCL, DL) should be set up for preventing concentration detection of above MCL and it needs to the maintenance and management. For example, when the concentration is more than MCL, it should be investigated on a quarterly and when the concentration is lower than MCL, it should be investigated to each different interval and management. And the US EPA divided the management area and make the roadmap for managing drinking water. The each classified area has been organized to match the state budget and labor force and the individual data have been managed effectively by HPGe, the NaI, TLD and so on.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.341-352
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• 2017

Along with Cs-137 (half-life: 30.17 years), Sr-90 (half-life: 28.8 years) is one of the most important environmental monitoring radioactive elements. Rapid and easy monitoring method for Sr-90 using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) has been studied. Strontium belongs to a bivalent alkaline earth metal such as calcium and has similar electron arrangement and size. Due to these similar chemical properties, it can easily enter into the human body through the food chain via water, soil, and crops when leaked into the environment. In addition, it is immersed into the bone at the case of human influx and causes the toxicity for a long time (biological half-life: about 50 years). It is a very reductive and related with the specific reaction that makes wet analysis difficult. In particular, radioactive strontium should be monitored by nuclear power plants but it is very difficult to be analysed from high-cost problems as well as low accuracy of analysis due to complicated analysis procedures, expensive analysis equipment, and a pretreatment process of using massive chemicals. Therefore, we introduce the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) analysis method that analyzes the elements in the sample using the inherent spectrum by generating plasma on the sample using pulse energy, and it can be analyzed in a few seconds without preprocessing. A variety of analytical plates for samples were developed to improve the analytical sensitivity by optimizing the laser, wavelength, and time resolution. This can be effectively applied to real-time monitoring of radioactive wastewater discharged from a nuclear power plant, and furthermore, it can be applied as an emergency monitoring means such as possible future accidents at a nuclear power plants.