Citation

Vicente R, Sordi GM, Hiromoto G. Health Phys. 2004; 86(5): 497-504.

Affiliation

Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares, Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes, 2242-Cidade Universitária, CEP 05508-000, São Paulo, Brazil. rvicente@ipen.br

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Health Physics Society, Publisher Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

15083145

Abstract

Spent or disused sealed radiation sources--no longer needed sources--may represent a risk of radiological accident or may be a target for criminal acts in countries where final disposal options are unavailable and where an increasing number of sources are being kept in extended storage. In developing countries, thousands of radium needles, teletherapy sources, oil well logging neutron sources, and miscellaneous industrial radioactive gauges are annually collected as waste and stored in research institutes. The objectives of the study described in this paper are to inventory such sources in Brazil, including those presently in use and those already collected as waste, and to design a dedicated repository where spent sources could be disposed of properly. The inventory of sources in Brazil and the concept of the repository are presented and its feasibility is discussed.

Language: en