RESUMEN
In recent years, the historical center of Old Havana has been under a serious restoration movement which could increase the heavy metal concentrations in street dusts and thus severely impact humans in the area. Therefore, the aim of this work is to study the heavy metal concentrations, pollution indexes, and health risk assessment of urban road dusts from the city in order to assess if this restoration movement is harmful to the citizens and visitors. Street road dust samples were collected at 33 stations for the determination of some heavy metals (Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Pb) concentrations using an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) instrument. The mean concentration values of the elements Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Pb were 7.0 mg.kg-1, 60.6 mg.kg-1, 73.6 mg.kg-1, 548.7 mg.kg-1, and 60.8 mg.kg-1, respectively. Zn and Pb showed higher values of the background. The study of the enrichment factor (EF), the pollution index (IP), and the integral pollution index (IPI) showed some stations with high values of contamination near construction places. Zn was identified as the major pollutant and correlated to the biggest construction places of the municipality at that moment. However, the hazard index (HI) and carcinogenic risk (CR) values do not show the risk of getting non-carcinogenic or carcinogenic diseases associated with the analyzed pollutants. Therefore, it was safely concluded that the big reconstruction movement does not represent a health problem.
Asunto(s)
Contaminantes Ambientales , Metales Pesados , Humanos , Polvo/análisis , Cuba , Plomo , Monitoreo del Ambiente , Metales Pesados/análisis , Contaminantes Ambientales/análisis , Ciudades , Medición de Riesgo , ChinaRESUMEN
RESUMEN Se resumen las diferentes experiencias en la aplicación de las técnicas nucleares y conexas en el estudio de diversos problemas ambientales de la Ciudad de La Habana. El análisis medioambiental mediante las técnicas de Análisis por Activación Neutrónica (AAN) y Gamma (AAG), Fluorescencia de Rayos X (FRX), Espectrometría por Absorción Atómica (EAA) y por Inducción de plasma acoplado (ICP), así como la Espectrometría Gamma de Bajo Fondo (EGBF), han permitido obtener información muy relevante sobre el comportamiento de los metales pesados, antibióticos y radionúclidos en los sedimentos marinos y fluviales, suelos urbanos y agrícolas, aguas, arenas de balnearios, polvos urbanos y productos de la agricultura urbana de la ciudad de La Habana.
ABSTRACT Various nuclear and related analytical techniques applied to study different environmental problems in Havana city are presented. The environmental analysis by means of Neutron and Gamma Activation analyses, X-ray Fluorescence Atomic Abortion and Induced Coupled Plasma spectroscopies and Low Background , Gamma Spectrometry, have allowed to obtain important information about the behavior of heavy metals, antibiotics and radionuclides in sediments, urban and agricultural soils, waters, beach sands, urban dusts and agricultural products farmed in the Havana city.
RESUMEN
ABSTRACT Lowbackground gamma spectrometry was applied to analyze the uranium enrichment of the nuclear fuel used in the InSTEC Sub Critical ensemble. The enrichment was calculated by two variants: an absolute method using the Monte Carlo method to simulated detector volumetric efficiency, and an iterative procedure without using standard sources. The results confirm that the nuclear fuel of the ensemble is natural uranium without any additional degree of enrichment.
RESUMEN Se analiza el grado de enriquecimiento del uranio del combustible nuclear usado en el Conjunto Subcrítico del InSTEC mediante espectrometría gamma de bajo fondo. El enriquecimiento se calcula tanto por vía absoluta, simulando la eficiencia del detector por Monte Carlo, como por un procedimiento iterativo que no requiere del empleo de muestras estándares. Los resultados confirman que el combustible nuclear es uranio natural sin ningún grado de enriquecimiento adicional.