Thoron and associated risks in the handling of thorium compounds

1. Thorium compounds continually give off thoron and its daughters and their radioactivity can constitute a danger for operators who may inhale them. 2. By analogy with radon the maximum admissible content in air of thoron and its daughters has been set at 10-7 μc/cm3. However the differences in behaviour between radon and its active deposit on the one hand, and thoron and its daughters on the other, appear great enough to justify more thorough investigation. In fact it seemed probable that, contrary to what takes place with radon, the thoron + thorium A content at a given point may differ appreciable from the thorium B + thorium C + thorium C' + thorium C'' content at the same point, because of the considerable differences in half-life which allow a greater or lesser distribution. 3. To determine the relative concentrations it was necessary to develop a method for estimating thoron in equilibrium with thorium A, the measurement of thorium B and its daughters being carried out in the conventional way by counting the activity collected on a filter. 4. Another object of this study was to estimate the danger presented by thoron in equilibrium with thorium A in the immediate vicinity of thorium sources, in a plant extracting thorium from urano-thorianite. (author)