Determination of Depleted Uranium inEnvironmental Bio-monitor Samples and Soilfrom Target sites in Western Balkan Region

摘要

Lichen and Moss are widely used to assess the atmospheric pollution by heavy metalsand radionuclides. In this paper, we report results of uranium and its isotope ratios using massspectrometric measurements (followed by chemical separation procedure) for mosses, lichens andsoil samples from a depleted uranium (DU) target site in western Balkan region. Samples werecollected in 2003 from Han Pijesak (Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Hercegovina). Inductivelycoupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) measurements show the presence of highconcentration of uranium in some samples. Concentration of uranium in moss samples rangedfrom 5.2 – 755.43 Bq/Kg. We have determined ~(235)U/~(238)Uisotope ratio using thermal ionizationmass spectrometry (TIMS) from the samples with high uranium content and the ratios are in therange of 0.002097-0.002380. TIMS measurement confirms presence of DU in some samples.However, we have not noticed any traces of DU in samples containing lesser amount of uraniumor from any samples from the living environment of same area.