A review of radio chemical analysis and estimation of 210Po in soil matrices

The naturally occurring radionuclide 210Po, arising from the uranium–radium decay series, provides a considerable contribution to the radiation exposure to humans. Polonium is analyzed for a variety of purposes, including for radiological impact assessment or as a tracer of environmental processes. Losses of polonium may occur at temperatures above 100 °C, depending on conditions, requiring particular care in sample preparation and treatment. There has been little development regarding analysis of polonium in environmental samples since 1960 as radiochemical analysis of polonium is quite straight forward due to easy of source preparation through auto-deposition on to metal surfaces. In this paper a brief review of estimation of polonium in the soil samples have given emphasis.