Study on 14C environmental transfer, spatial and temporal distribution around nuclear facility

To study the 14C environmental behavior and associated distribution around nuclear facility, a series of experimental methods for 14C environmental influence evaluation using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) were developed, and successfully applied at Qinshan nuclear power plant (NPP). The methods include sampling, pretreatment, graphitization and AMS measurement processes for conventional environmental samples, such as atmospheric 14CO2, water, tree ring and food samples. The results investigated at Qinshan NPP showed that: (1) airborne released 14C from HWRs is the dominant source at Qinshan site; (2) the 14C influenced zone is within 6.5 km in 2010, with the maximum 14C concentration of 18.7% above the background; (3) the effective dose resulting from the 14C discharged from Qinshan NPP was estimated to be 0.5 µSv in 2010