U-238, Ra-226 Po-210 concentrations of bottled mineral waters in Hungary and their committed effective dose

Nowadays the consumption of bottled mineral waters has become very popular. The average consumption of these is 0.36 1 d(-1) per person in Europe. A considerable segment of the population drinks almost only mineral water as drinking water, which is about 1 l d(-1). As is known, some kinds of mineral waters contain naturally occurring radionuclides in higher concentration than the usual drinking (tap) water. The WHO (1993) legislation concerning the drinking waters does not include the mineral waters. In our work, the concentrations of Ra-226, U-238 and Po-210 were determined in mineral waters available in Hungary. To determine the Ra-226 concentration the emanation method was used. The U-238 and Po-210 concentrations were determined by alpha spectrometry using semiconductor detector. The dose contribution was calculated using the radionuclide concentrations and the dose conversion factors from the Basic Safety Standard IAEA (1995), for 11 d(-1) mineral water consumption. In some cases the calculated doses were considerable higher than the limit for drinking waters. Especially for children the doses can be remarkably high.