Ricerc@Sapienza

Since 2013, the Council Directive 2013/51/Euratom has been regulating the content of radioactive substances in water intended for human consumption. However, mineral waters are exempted from this regulation, including self-bottled springs waters, where higher radon concentration are expected. Therefore, a systematic survey has been conducted on all the 33 mineral spring waters of Lazio (a region of Central Italy) in order to assess if such waters, when self-bottled, may be of concern for public health.

The emanometry test method is one of the detection techniques of radon in water satisfying requirements of Directive 2013/51/Euratom with regards to the detection limit. Quality assurance (QA) procedures were developed and implemented for a measuring system relying on such a technique. These procedures mainly address the following: (i) the assembling of each component of the degassing circuit, (ii) the sample transfer from the transport container to the degassing vessel and (iii) the control of all the influencing quantities.