Distribution of Natural Radioactivity in Oil-Derived Lubricants

Abstract

Oil and gas production processing operations have been known to cause naturally occurring radioactive materials that could lead to internal and external radiation hazards and then a significant radiation dose to the workers. So, in this work, nine oil lubricants samples used on a daily basis were collected from local suppliers in Egypt in order to determine their natural radioactivity. The activity concentrations of the radionuclides were measured using coaxial hyper pure germanium (HPGe) detector system, and the derived doses were evaluated. The average activity concentrations obtained were 0.57 ± 0.04, 2.33 ± 0.39 and 5.44 ± 0.27 Bq·kg⁻¹ for ²³⁸U,²³²Th and ⁴⁰K, respectively. The absorbed doses were very low ranging from 0.57 to 4.20 nGyh⁻¹.