Study the Possibility of Measuring Heavy Metals Arising from Gold Mining Sample using Cf-252 Neutron Source

Mining activities contribute immens ely to trace element pollution. The present work studied the possibility of measuring heavy metals arising from gold mining areas Eastern Desert in Egypt using the isotopic Cf-252 neutron source. 38.5 g of the sample collected in gold mine or around its field is irradiated in a neutron field of Cf-252 for 36.75 days. Moreover 0.3 mg of this sample is irradiated at the Pneumatic Irradiation Rabbit System (PIRS) built in the vertical thermal column of the ETRR-2 reactor. The induce d activities in the samples are measured using two high resolution ?-ray spectrometry systems (including two calibrated HPGe detectors). The k(0)-standardization neutron activation analysis (k(o)-NAA) method was used to analyze the induced activities in the sample under investigation. Thermal to epithermal flux ratio f at the two irradiation positions are measured. The obtained results indicated that the contamination values of the suspected metals such as sodium, magnesium, potassium, manganese, along with heavy metals such as arsenic, ruthenium and tantalum were higher than the background ones, signifying accumulation of these metals due to gold mining activities. The accuracy and precision of the method has been evaluated to be less than 5%.