Physico-chemical processes occurring in the atmosphere play an important part in the global distribution of radionuclides. In this study, radionuclide concentrations of cosmogenic and terrestrial radionuclides Beryllium-7 and Lead-212 in surface air and meteorological data collected by the CTBTO Radionuclide Monitoring Station PHP52 in Tanay, Philippines were assessed to understand the...
Radioactive xenon isotopes provide the most likely observable radioactive signatures of underground nuclear explosions. These isotopes are frequently detected by IMS noble gas systems as a result of normal operational releases from different types of nuclear facilities including nuclear power plants (NPPs) and medical isotope production facilities (MIPFs), reprocessing facilities and nuclear...
Large quantities of the radioactive noble gas krypton-85 (85Kr) are released into the atmosphere as a result of reprocessing of used nuclear fuel rods. Reprocessing started in the 1940s mainly to separate plutonium for military purposes. Emissions from civil reprocessing activities have steadily been increasing since and impede on the use of 85Kr as an indicator for clandestine plutonium...
The Source Term Analysis of Xenon (STAX) project is a new effort to better understand the radioxenon background in the environment. This project is using high resolution stack detectors to directly measure the radioxenon emissions from fission-based Mo-99 production facilities. Currently, two experimental high purity germanium (HPGe) based detector systems reside at the Institute for...
Since the provisional operation of the International Monitoring System (IMS) started, six announced underground nuclear tests were conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site. For the first test (9 October 2006) and the third one (12 February 2013), radioxenon observations were made by IMS stations that were immediately reported to State...
