A comparison of selected natural radionuclide concentrations in the thermal groundwater of Mszczonów and Cieplice with deep well water from Łódź city, Poland

A simple procedure using α and γ spectrometry for the determination of natural radionuclides in two Polish geothermal water samples from Mszczonów and Cieplice, as well as in deep well groundwater from the city of Łódź, was described. The 222Rn radionuclide was directly extracted from 10 cm3 water samples to a scintillator solution placed in scintillation vials and determined by an liquid scintillation (LSC) technique with α/β separation. The activity concentrations of three radium nuclides: 228Ra(228Ac), 226Ra(222Rn), 224Ra, as well as 210Pb and 228Th were measured by γ spectrometry with an HPGe detector after their preconcentration on hydrated MnO2. 210Po was deposited on a silver disc from dissolved MnO2 precipitate after γ-spectrometry analysis and measured by α spectrometry. The concentration of 210Pb in the examined samples was below the detection limit of the method (< 6.2 mBq/dm3), whereas activity of its decay product 210Po was in the range 0.35–1.4 mBq/dm3. Higher activities of 228Ra (46.7 mBq/dm3), 226Ra (67.8 mBq/dm3) and 224Ra (22.4 mBq/dm3) were observed for the deep well water in Łódź in comparison to those for geothermal water samples from Cieplice and Mszczonów. However, concentrations of all the measured radionuclides were below World Health Organization (WHO) reference activities (0.1 Bq/dm3 for 228Ra and 1 Bq/dm3 for 226Ra and 226Ra).