Speakers
Dr
Abdelouahed Daraoui
(Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany)Dr
Beate Riebe
(IRS / Leibniz Universitaet Hannover, Germany)Ms
Mareike Schwinger
(Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany)
Description
I-129 (T₁/₂=15.7 Ma) is produced both naturally and as result of human nuclear activities. Nowadays, the amount of anthropogenic I-129 in the atmosphere and in surface waters has continued to increase due to releases from the spent nuclear fuel reprocesssing plants, particularly in Western Europe, from the nuclear reprocessing plants La Hague (France) and Sellafield (U.K.). In the atmosphere, iodine exists in differnt species as inorganic gaseous iodine (I₂, HI, HOI), organic gaseous iodine (CHI₃, CH₂I₂, CH₃CH₂CH₂I, etc.) and particle associated iodine; their concentrations vary with location, season and climate. The speciation of I-129 in the atmosphere can also provide useful information about sources and transfer pathways.
In this work, we present the concentration of I-127, I-129 and the ratio of I-129/I-127 in aerosol samples, collected weekly during the year 2011 in Braunschweig, Northern Germany. Aerosols were extracted from the filters using an alkaline solution and separated from the matrix elements with chloroform. The samples were analysed for I-129 by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), and for I-127 by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).
The concentrations of I-127 and I-129 in aerosol filters range between 0.4-3.7 ng/m³ and 0.06-0.7 fg/m³, respectively. The I-129/I-129 ratios range between 0.7 x 10E-7 and 7.4 x 10E-7. In addition, we compare the distribution of I-129 with that of Kr-85 and Be-7. We discuss the effect of speciation of I-129 and stable I-127 in the environment, and the disequilibrium between these two isotopes.
Author
Dr
Abdelouahed Daraoui
(Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany)
Co-authors
Dr
Beate Riebe
(IRS / Leibniz Universitaet Hannover, Germany)
Ms
Mareike Schwinger
(Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany)
Monika Gorny
(Liebniz Universität Hannover)
