Determination of depleted uranium using a high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer and its applications in soil and sediments

A high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometer based on a hyper-pure germanium detector has been used to determine the amounts of depleted uranium in ground features subjected to military operations during the Gulf War of 1991 and in beach sediment samples collected from the northern side of the Arabian Gulf. The determination of 235U/238U was evaluated using spiked samples with a series of depleted uranium solutions. According to this method, the levels of depleted uranium were found to exceed 6.5% of the total natural uranium required to achieve reasonable levels for detection. Soil results indicated that the average of the total radioactivity of 238U is 50.59 Bq/kg, with approximately 41.41% of this being represented by depleted uranium. For on-site and off-site individuals in an area of 10000 m2, the RESRAD computer code was applied to calculate the annual radiological dose, which determined a level of 0.0031 mSv of total U; the code was also used to estimate the cancer risk, the level of which was determined to be 4.75 × 10−6 and 1.9 × 10−6 due to the total U and DU, respectively.