Development and application of Marinelli beaker standards for monitoring radioactivity in Dairy-Products by gamma-ray spectrometry

Marinelli (reentrant) beakers are recommended for measurement of low-activity radioactive environmental samples, in both liquid and solid phase. The preparation of Marinelli beaker standards of milk powder containing 232ThO2 at secular equilibrium with its daughter radionuclides was studied. Standards were prepared by mixing of known amounts of solid ThO2 and milk powder. The densities of the standards were 0.5–0.7 kg dm−3. Measurements of calibrated Marinelli beaker standards with HPGe detector showed that the energy dependence of the efficiency is similar to that of a point source, i.e. an almost linear dependence of log-efficiency vs. log-energy in the 200–2000 keV range, however the parabolic correlation fits better. The validity of these standards was checked by comparison with certified standard reference material IAEA-152-Milk powder containing radiocesium and radiopotassium. The results obtained were found to be in a good agreement with the published certified data. The limit of detection for the determination of radiocesium by gamma ray spectrometry under the prevailing experimental conditions is 0.03 Bq (i.e. 0.8 pCi), for samples of dairy products having lower densities of 0.7 kg dm−1.