著者

河野 孝央

出版者

日本放射線安全管理学会

雑誌

日本放射線安全管理学会誌 (ISSN:13471503)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.9, no.2, pp.133-140, 2010 (Released:2011-12-20)

参考文献数

17

被引用文献数

4

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Potassic chemical fertilizers contain potassium, a small part of which is potassium-40. Since potassium-40 is a naturally occurring radioisotope, potassic chemical fertilizers are often used for demonstrations of the existence of natural radioisotopes and radiation. To fabricate radiation sources as educational tools, the compression and formation method developed by our previous study was applied to 13 brands of commercially available chemical fertilizers containing different amounts of potassium. The suitability (size, weight, and solidness) of thus fabricated sources was examined and 12 of them were selected as easy-to-use radiation sources at radiation educational courses. The radiation strength (radiation count rate measured by a GM survey meter) and potassium content of the 12 sources were examined. It was found that the count rate was wholly proportional to the percentage of potassium, and a new educational application was proposed and discussed for understanding that the substance emitting radiation must be the potassium present in the raw fertilizers.