OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE of 14C a systematic investigation of 14C contamination of workers at the nuclear power industry, the pharmaceutical industry and other laboratories using 14C

Sammanfattning: With the help from accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), hair from workers within the nuclear power industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has been investigated to see if contamination from 14C. 14C-using companies and nuclear power plants were contacted, volunteers were recruited, who sent in hair samples together with a questionnaire. The samples were washed and prepared for 14C analysis with a single stage AMS (SSAMS) machine. Different ways were tried to remove sulphur impurities form the hair samples. Hair collected at hairdresser saloons was analysed to act as a background indicator. Contaminations were found in two samples that were in the order of 12 and 78 times higher than normal background. Also smaller contaminations were found in 12 samples that indicate a general contamination in the work environment. Further studies are needed to investigate if the contamination is entirely internal, and not to some extent external 14C absorbed by the hair. If the 14C contamination is mainly internal, this work suggests that the workers at least should be made aware of the amount of 14C they receive internally. The work presented in this master’s thesis shows that our graphitization method is good for hair and AMS can be used as a tool to monitor small amounts of 14C in hair.