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Processing of by-product heavy minerals (amang) from tin mining involves potential exposure to external and internal sources of radioactivity. The radioactivity arises through the presence of thorium and uranium series radionuclides in the various minerals. Monazite is the most radioactive mineral, containing 3% to 7% thorium by weight, while ilmenite is generally the least radioactive mineral containing typically less than 0.05% thorium. External exposure occurs when workers are in close proximity to accumulations or stockpiles of the radioactive minerals, whereas internal exposure occurs when workers are involved in dusty processes. This paper summarizes the nature of the amang industry in South East Asia and presents the results of preliminary measurements of external radiation and airborne radioactivity in twelve Malaysian and Thai plants. Although constrained by a paucity of exposure data, it is concluded that radiation doses to some amang plant workers may approach or exceed international standards and that appropriate control measures are required as a matter of priority, Radiation doses may approach or exceed 100 mSv in situations where workers are exposed to excessive levels of ambient dust and no protective measures are used. Observations and recommendations are made relating to monitoring and surveillance, instruction and training, and engineering and administrative protection measures.

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Thorium lung burdens have been measured in workers in the dry separation plants operated by the mineral sands industry in Western Australia. The data have been compared with historical employment records of the worker's exposure to thorium-bearing airborne dusts in order to assess the reliability of personal air sampling and with the predictions of the new Task Group lung model. The thoron exhaled in the breath of 62 workers was measured using a double filter tube. Six of the workers also underwent in-vivo gamma counting to determine their thorium lung burden. A thoron exhalation rate of 4.7% was obtained from a comparison of the two data sets. The estimated thorium lung burdens from the thoron-in-breath measurements had a geometric mean value of 10 Bq. The workers had a geometric mean employment period in the industry of 9.2 y and a geometric mean total inhaled alpha activity of 9,000 Bq, estimated from contemporary personal air sampling data and a retrospective assessment of previous workplace conditions. This exposure corresponds to a mean daily intake of 232Th of 0.45 Bq. Predictions from the new Task Group lung model indicate that, for the 45 workers with a thorium lung burden in excess of the minimum detectable level (6 Bq), the daily intake of 232Th is a factor of 1.6 higher than expected. This result suggests that previous intake of radioactive dust was higher than generally assumed for some workers. The application of the new Task Group lung models to the bioassay data results in an estimated mean annual committed effective dose for the workers of 8 mSv. Two workers (3%) were found to have been exposed for many years in excess of the 50 mSv y-1 annual limit for occupational exposure, while eight workers (13%) exceeded the ICRP's proposed new occupational standard of an average of 20 mSv y-1. All eight had been employed for more than 6 y and the majority of their exposure was attributed to early employment years, prior to extensive workplace improvements in dust control.

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An attempt has been made to correlate the thorium excreted in the feces of two male workers in the monazite section of a mineral sands dry separation plant over a ten-day period with personal air sampling measurements. The air-borne radioactivity was measured on a daily basis using a total (inspirable) dust filter, an integrating personal dosimeter, and a personal cascade impactor. The thorium content of the feces was measured using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The results suggest that thorium fecal analyses are able to detect acute and chronic exposures to the inhalation of thorium bearing dusts and to confirm the amount of inhaled thorium predicted from air sampling programs and metabolic models.

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The concentration of thorium in the blood serum and urine of Western Australian mineral sands workers was studied to complement estimates of radiation dose derived from air sampling measurements. The concentration of thorium in urine samples from occupationally unexposed persons and pooled serum samples was also investigated. The concentration of thorium in the urine of the workers varied from 3-210 ng L-1 (geometric mean = 31 ng L-1, n = 34) while the concentration of thorium in the serum varied from 170-2,000 ng L-1 (geometric mean = 480 ng L-1, n = 25). No correlation was found between the bioassay results and cumulative airborne thorium exposure. The geometric mean ratio of daily excretion of thorium in urine to total thorium in the serum pool was 2.5%, considerably lower than the value of 10% proposed by the ICRP. These data indicate that more information is required to clarify the biokinetic models for thorium and that doses assessed from air sampling data must be interpreted with caution.

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A study was conducted at a mineral sands separation plant to evaluate the workplace performance of half-mask filter cartridge respirators. Inhalation exposure was estimated by measuring the dust and radioactivity concentration inside the respirator while it was worn or hanging around the worker's neck. The program protection factor was determined by simultaneously measuring inside-mask and ambient (outside-mask) concentrations. A total of 27 tests were conducted, covering three brands of half-mask respirators; facial hair on test subjects ranged from clean-shaven to bearded. Program protection factors varied from 1.8 to 13 for dust exposure and 2.5 to 21 for radioactivity exposure. The geometric mean program protection factor over all tests was 5.1 (geometric standard deviation [GSD] = 1.7) for dust exposure and 7.5 (GSD = 1.7) for radioactivity exposure. A minimum program protection factor of 3.5 could be applied to ambient airborne concentration data to obtain a conservative, but more realistic, estimate of inhalation exposure on a worker category basis.

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