An accident at a UK nuclear reprocessing plant caused an area of local moor-land to be contaminated with the radioactive isotope cobalt-60, which has a half-life of 5.23 years. The radioactivity of the moor-land just after the accident was measured at 500 bequerels.m-2.
Public access to the moor-land was restricted until the level of radioactivity
fell to 1.0 bequerel.m-2. How long must access be restricted ?
useful equation:
In {original activity / existing activity} = k x time taken.
Hint : First use the value of the half-life and the logarithmic relationship between radioactivity and time, given above, to determine k, the rate constant.
Now use the value of k obtained to predict the access restriction time.
2007-12-14
20:50:50
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3 answers
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asked by
Anonymous
in
Physics