Re: [tlug] Measuring radioactivity at TEPCO Fukushima plant

[Kalin KOZHUHAROV <me.kalin@example.com>]

Guys,

I have been waiting for my friend who is an radiation measurement
expert to get on-line and been reading about these Bq/kg readings...

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 18:56, Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com> wrote:
> On 20 March 2011 05:43, Darren Cook <darren@example.com> wrote:
>
>> Do water filters remove iodine, and if so would that be enough?
>
> Ironically, it seems that iodine is often used to *purify* water:
>
> http://www.google.se/search?ie=UTF-8&q=water+filter+iodine
>
> Looks like activated carbon will get it done:
>
> "Activated carbon does adsorb iodine very well and in fact the iodine
> number, mg/g, (ASTM D28 Standard Method test) is used as an indication
> of total surface area."
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_carbon#Properties)
>
> http://www.lenntech.com/periodic/water/iodine/iodine-and-water.htm
>
> And it looks like Brita filters contained activated carbon:
>
> http://www.brita.net/uk/faqs_household.html?L=1#24
>
Technically it does work, however at the level we are talking about
especially for Tokyo, I really doubt it. I couldn't get a formula to
convert Bq/kg from I-131 into mg/kg, but based on my intuition it
should be even ng/kg. If I am right at interpreting the latest figures
for Tokyo[1], 2.9Bq/kg from I-131 means that average 2.9 atoms of
I-131 decay per second inside 1 kg (1 liter) of water. Given the short
half-life of I-131 (about 8d), I really doubt there is a lot of it.
Understand that the detector these days are _really_ sensitive!

[1]	http://eq.wide.ad.jp/files/110320water_1300.pdf

See http://eq.wide.ad.jp/ for more info, but the English translation
is lagging a few hours.

Cheers,
Kalin.