Thoron gas clusters in the indoor air of primary schools of Al Najaf city: A geographic analysis

¹ Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, University of Kufa, Al-Najaf, Iraq
² Department of basic Science, College of Dentistry, University of Kufa, Al-Najaf, Iraq
³ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Kufa, Al-Najaf, Iraq
⁴ Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, University of Kufa, Al-Najaf, Iraq

^* Corresponding author: ali.alhameedawi@uokufa.edu.iq

Abstract

In this study, thoron gas concentrations were measured in a primary school in the city of Najaf using a CR-39 detector. This work can be divided into four sections: the first segment involved using the Global Positioning System to find latitude and longitude for all points. In part two, determination was made on 220Rn gas concentrations in samples from a primary school. These values are varied between 0.22 Bq/m3 and 9.00 Bq/m3 with an average value of 2.99 ± 1.80 Bq/m3 lower than the recommended value (below UNSCEAR 2000 safety standard of 40 Bq/m3). The third part of which involves using ArcMap GIS 10.8, interpolation to identify varying of thoron and the kernel density estimation (KDE) for mapping thoron concentrations along province, the result of density is lowest through some districts in Al Meelad (Sch52,67,97), Al Zahraa (Sch41), and Al Hasan (Sch56,66). While the density increases rapidly to reaches a peak in Al Jdeidat (Sch 1,2,3,5,6,11,17,23,29,33,36,42), Al Mualimeen (Sch12), Al Muthanna (Sch35), AL Rahmaa (Sch 86,87,91), Al Jamiya (Sch69,70,72,73), and Al Hindiyeh (Sch46,48). Finally using SaTScan v10.1.3 February 2024 of the spatial scan statistic was identified in 3 locations were exposure to thoron concentration in Al Najaf city.