Interlaboratory Comparison: Determination of radionuclides in environmental samples in Taiwan

Liang-Yu Tao; Wan-Ling Chen; Chin-Yi Fang; Wen-Hsien Tsai

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2025.111856

Interlaboratory Comparison: Determination of radionuclides in environmental samples in Taiwan

Appl Radiat Isot. 2025 Aug:222:111856. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2025.111856. Epub 2025 Apr 25.

Authors

Liang-Yu Tao¹, Wan-Ling Chen², Chin-Yi Fang², Wen-Hsien Tsai²

Affiliations

¹ Radiation Monitoring Center, Nuclear Safety Commission, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Electronic address: iamtauzi@nusc.gov.tw.
² Radiation Monitoring Center, Nuclear Safety Commission, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

PMID: 40311435
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2025.111856

Abstract

Radionuclides in the environment occur naturally (primordial and cosmogenic) and are produced by human activities (anthropogenic). This study examines the capabilities of laboratories in Taiwan for measuring radionuclides in environmental samples. We compared the laboratories' ability to determine the activity of natural and anthropogenic radionuclides, such as tritium (³H), potassium-40 (⁴⁰K), strontium-90 (⁹⁰Sr), cesium-137 (¹³⁷Cs), thallium-208 (²⁰⁸Tl), bismuth-214 (²¹⁴Bi), actinium-228 (²²⁸Ac), gross beta, and gross uranium (²³⁴U, ²³⁵U, ²³⁸U). The reported data were evaluated using statistical methods like zeta scores and visual representations like PomPlots. The results indicate that the measurement capabilities in Taiwan are still up-to-date and the measurements provided by these laboratories in recent years can be considered trustworthy and reliable.

Keywords: Interlaboratory comparison; Power-moderated mean; Radionuclides measurement.