Study has been made of the thermoluminescence (TL) yield of various glass-based commercial kitchenware (Reko-China, Skoja-France, Godis-China, Glass Tum-Malaysia, Lodrat-France). Interest focuses on their potential for retrospective dosimetry. Use was made of a60Co gamma-ray irradiator, delivering doses in the range 2-10 Gy. Results for the various media show all the glassware brands to yield linearity of response against dose, with a lower limit of detection of ∼0.06 and ∼0.08 Gy for loose and compact powdered samples. Among all of the brands under study, the Lodrat glassware provides the greatest sensitivity, at 6.0 E+02 nC g-1 Gy-1 and 1.5E+03 nC g-1 Gy-1 for compact- and loose-powdered forms respectively. This is sufficiently sensitive to allow its use as a TL material for accident dosimetry (2 Gy being the threshold dose for the onset of a number of deterministic biological effects, including skin erythema and sterility). Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyses have been conducted, showing the presence of a number of impurities (including C, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca and Br). Fading of the irradiated glasses show the amount of better than 3% and 5% of the stored energy for both loose and compact powdered samples within 9 days post irradiation. As such, commercial kitchenware glass has the potential to act as relatively good TL material for gamma radiation dosimetry at accident levels. This is the first endeavour reporting the TL properties of low cost commercial kitchenware glasses for gamma-ray doses in the few Gy range, literature existing for doses from 8 Gy to 200 Gy.
Accidents resulting in widespread dispersal of radioactive materials have given rise to a need for materials that are convenient in allowing individual dose assessment. The present study examines natural Dead Sea salt adopted as a model thermoluminescence dosimetry system. Samples were prepared in two different forms, loose-raw and loose-ground, subsequently exposed to 60Co gamma-rays, delivering doses in the range 2-10 Gy. Key thermoluminescence (TL) properties were examined, including glow curves, dose response, sensitivity, reproducibility and fading. Glow curves shapes were found to be independent of given dose, prominent TL peaks for the raw and ground samples appearing in the temperature ranges 361-385 ºC and 366-401 ºC, respectively. The deconvolution of glow curves has been undertaken using GlowFit, resulting in ten overlapping first-order kinetic glow peaks. For both sample forms, the integrated TL yield displays linearity of response with dose, the loose-raw salt showing some 2.5 × the sensitivity of the ground salt. The samples showed similar degrees of fading, with respective residual signals 28 days post-irradiation of 66% and 62% for the ground and raw forms respectively; conversely, confronted by light-induced fading the respective signal losses were 62% and 80%. The effective atomic number of the Dead Sea salt of 16.3 is comparable to that of TLD-200 (Zeff 16.3), suitable as an environmental radiation monitor in accident situations but requiring careful calibration in the reconstruction of soft tissue dose (soft tissue Zeff 7.2). Sample luminescence studies were carried out via Raman and Photoluminescence spectroscopy as well as X-ray diffraction, ionizing radiation dependent variation in lattice structure being found to influence TL response.