γ-EMITTER CONTENT IN COAL AS A MEANS FOR IDENTIFYING A DEPOSIT

摘要

The idea that coals of the same type from different deposits can be distinguished by the composition of naturally occurring long-lived radionuclides was advanced in order to analyze the possibility of using low-background and high-precision γ-ray spectrometry of such nuclides for industrial purposes. This opens up the possibility of fast high-precision monitoring of a certified batch of coal according to its declared origin by measuring the spectral composition of the γ-radiation of a sample or directly inside the container with the coal and comparing with the isotopic certificate of the deposit. To get an idea of the possibilities of such an approach, the content of the naturally occurring radioactive elements in a test sample of coal was measured.