Sources of plutonium isotopes and 137Cs in coastal seawaters of Liaodong Bay and Bohai Strait, China and its environmental implications

Yongpei Hao; Yihong Xu; Shaoming Pan; Xiaowei Song; Kexin Zhang; Haiting Guo; Zhi Gu

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.03.037

Sources of plutonium isotopes and ¹³⁷Cs in coastal seawaters of Liaodong Bay and Bohai Strait, China and its environmental implications

Mar Pollut Bull. 2018 May:130:240-248. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.03.037. Epub 2018 Mar 27.

Authors

Yongpei Hao¹, Yihong Xu², Shaoming Pan³, Xiaowei Song⁴, Kexin Zhang⁵, Haiting Guo¹, Zhi Gu¹

Affiliations

¹ The Key Laboratory of Coastal and Island Development of Ministry of Education, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
² The Key Laboratory of Coastal and Island Development of Ministry of Education, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China. Electronic address: yhxu@nju.edu.cn.
³ The Key Laboratory of Coastal and Island Development of Ministry of Education, School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China. Electronic address: span@nju.edu.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control & Resources Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210046, China.
⁵ College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China.

PMID: 29866553
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.03.037

Abstract

In order to investigate the sources of plutonium in seawaters of Liaodong Bay and Bohai Strait, China, surface seawater samples were collected and analyzed for ^239+240Pu and ¹³⁷Cs by radiochemical separation combined with ICP-MS and γ-spectrometry, respectively. A large variation of ^239+240Pu activities was observed, ranging from 1.993 to 29.677 mBq/m³ in the Liaodong Bay and from 0.932 to 10.183 mBq/m³ in the Bohai Strait. ¹³⁷Cs activities showed little variation between the investigated locations, which was attributed to the different behavior characteristics of ^239+240Pu and ¹³⁷Cs in seawaters. The ²⁴⁰Pu/²³⁹Pu atom ratios showed a significant variation between the Liaodong Bay (0.185) and Bohai Strait (0.225), indicating that Pu derived from the Pacific Proving Grounds might have been transported to the Bohai Strait but not yet to the Liaodong Bay, which could further provide valuable reference for evaluating the seawater exchange cycle between the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea.

Keywords: (137)Cs; (239+240)Pu; (240)Pu/(239)Pu atom ratio; Bohai Strait; Liaodong Bay; Surface seawater.

MeSH terms

Bays
Cesium Radioisotopes / analysis*
China
Plutonium / analysis*
Seawater / analysis
Water Movements*
Water Pollutants, Radioactive / analysis*

Substances

Cesium Radioisotopes
Plutonium-240
Water Pollutants, Radioactive
Cesium-137
Plutonium
Plutonium-239