TLD environmental monitoring at the Institute of Nuclear Engineering in Brazil

Since 2003 the Institute of Nuclear Engineering in Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil, operates a new cyclotron, RDS-111, to produce 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose to be used in nuclear medicine. Additionally, the IEN radioactive waste repository has been enlarged during the past last years, receiving a considerable amount of radioactive materials. Therefore, it became necessary to evaluate a possible increase of the environmental gamma exposure rates at the institute site due to the operation of the new accelerator and the enlargement of the institute waste repository as well. LiF:Mg,Cu,P, TLD-100H, and TL detectors were employed for environmental kerma rate evaluation and the results were compared with previous results obtained before the RDS-111 operation initialisation and the enlargement of IEN waste repository. No significant contribution for the enhancement of environmental gamma kerma rates was detected.