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The authors would like to acknowledge networking support by the COST Action TU1301. www.norm4building.org. This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 701932. This work was supported by the European Commission within HORIZON2020 via the EURATOM project EUFRAT for transnational access.

For a safe reuse of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORMs) in construction, it is of great importance to evaluate the radiological aspects of the reuse in addition to chemical, environmental, economic… aspects before the construction materials are introduced on the market. This is of particular importance for new types of construction materials, such as alkali activated materials, that allow the reuse of a large faction (wt%.) of residues. The Euratom BSS (basic safety standards) sets the requirement of the radiological evaluation of building materials that incorporate specific residues from NORM related industries. In the period 2014-2017, the COST Action Tu1301 NORM4Building initiated a lot of research on the radiological evaluation of new types of construction material that are currently in the research state. In the course of the NORM4Building project a radiological database on NORM & building materials was developed. In addition, new dosimetrical tools were developed for a more realistic evaluate of the gamma dose related to the reuse of NORM in construction. These dosimetrical tools provide a more realistic radiological screening of the reuse of building materials in addition to the Activity Concentration Index (ACI) that is proposed by the EU-BSS as screening tool. In the current paper and linked presentation, the contents of the NORM4Building database will be presented next to the newly developed dosimetrical tools for the evaluation of the public exposure to gamma radiation from different types of building materials. The NORM4Building database is available via www.norm4building.org. The authors acknowledge the networking support by the COST Action TU1301. www.norm4building.org. The authors wish to thank the University of Pannonia for the management and setting up of the database and datamining approach. In addition, the authors would like to thank all the colleagues who helped creating and evaluating the database and are very grateful to University of Hasselt for support on accessing the e-Journals. This work was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 701932.

“The project leading to this application has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 701932”

The reuse of industrial residue streams such as fly ash can be beneficial from economic and ecological points of view but durability properties of the final product and its effect on human health are the key properties to ensure safe inbuilt materials. The focus of the paper is on carbonation resistance of the high-volume fly ash concrete (HVFAC), but also on the radiological aspect of the use of fly ash in concrete as it belongs to the group of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials. HVFAC mixtures were exposed to natural and accelerated carbonation and results were compared and discussed. The contents of natural radionuclides (40K, 226Ra and 232Th) were measured and experimental results were compared by using the activity concentration assessment tool - index I.

Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death. In recent years, numerous countries have initiated the prohibition of smoking in restaurants, workplaces and public spaces. The Vietnamese government intends to follow the precautions against public smoking as well. Over and above the number of some hazardous chemical components found in tobacco, 210Po isotope content could enhance the probability of the development of lung cancer. In this study 14 Vietnamese tobacco products (commercial cigarettes and pipe tobacco) 210Po activity concentration were determined using PIPS semiconductor alpha spectrometry. The results showed that the 210Po activity concentration of the investigated samples varied between 7.40 ± 1.09 - 128.64 ± 11.22 mBq g-1. The average 210Po content of commercial cigarettes was 15.5 mBq g-1, whilst the average of pipe tobacco was 20.4 mBq g-1. To estimate the risk of inhalation of 210Po isotopes originating as a result of smoking, dose estimations were carried out.

To get an insight into the radiological features of potentially reusable by-products in the construction industry a review of the reported scientific data is necessary. This study is based on the continuously growing database of the By-BM (H2020-MSCA-IF-2015) project (By-products for Building Materials). Selection criteria were defined for manual data mining in such a way to avoid the collection of too heterogeneous datasets. Currently, the By-BM database contains individual data of about 431 by-products and 1095 construction and raw materials. The By-BM database only consists out of measurement information on individual samples and not out of processed data that only gives a rough summary (such as only a range or average) of experimental results. As a consequence of the statistical analysis of the data, it was found that in the case of the construction materials the natural isotope content had a wider distribution than the by-products. However, the average of the Ra-226, Th-232 and K-40 contents of reported by-products were 2.00, 2.11 and 0.48, while the median was found 1.97, 1.24 and 0.53 times higher than the construction materials, respectively. The calculated Radium equivalent concertation was greater than the accepted value for residential properties of 370 Bq/kg in the event of 10.3% of total construction materials and 42.4% of by-products, while the I-indexes were above 1.0 index value with 17.3% and 58.2%, respectively. From the obtained data, it can be concluded that the reuse of industrial by-products in construction materials for residential purposes, without due diligence, can pose elevated risks to residents as a result of their high-volume usage. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. The project leading to this application has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 701932. R. Doherty's time was also supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 643087. The authors would also like to acknowledge networking support by the COST Action TU1301. www.norm4building.org.

Naturally occurring radionuclides are present in the Earth crust; however, their distribution is not homogeneous. When primary or secondary raw materials containing relatively low concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides are introduced in an industrial process then the radionuclides can become more concentrated in the produced (by-)products. For example, during the production of purified metals, throughout the purification process, also other elements, such as naturally occurring radionuclides, become concentrated in the by-products. In order to assure radiation protection of the population, it is important to map the potential exposure for workers and the general public. There is an extensive literature available regarding the presence of naturally occurring radionuclides in various by-products; however, it can be hard to review and even to interpret for the regulators and members of the industry in order to assure the safe use of by-products for example in construction. To solve this problem data mining and text processing have been applied to the ever-increasing numbers of publications (More than 39,000 filtered publications have been processed up to the Jan. 6, 2017), and the NORM4Building database has been compiled based on the analysis of the collected data. Based on this database using text analysis methods the most NORM prone raw materials and industries have been identified. This chapter gives a concise overview on the parameters to be considered during the selection of NORM by-products as feedstock for the construction industry, specifically for the production of cement, concrete, and ceramics. In the frame of this chapter the technical and radiological properties of the most representative industrial processes (such as coal mining and combustion; iron and steel production; the alumina, the zirconia, and the phosphate industry; etc.) and their by-products are discussed, especially considering the needs of the construction industry and the new European Basic Safety Standards.

Scientific data on natural occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) is available in unknown quantities and the data is fragmented over several different sources. The new EU-BSS is regulating the use of NORM in building materials, however a large scale database with country specific information that can support legislators and industry in the assessment of the radiological impact of the use of by-products in construction is missing. Currently the COST Action ‘NORM4BUILDING’ (2014–2017) is creating such a database using a semi-automated datamining approach. In this paper radiological aspects on by-products that can find application in concrete are discussed based on the database. The authors would like to acknowledge networking support by the COST Action TU1301 www.norm4building.org. The authors wish to thank the University of Pannonia for the management and setting up of the database and datamining approach. In addition, the authors would like to thank all the colleagues who helped creating and evaluating the database and are very grateful to University of Hasselt for support on accessing the e-Journals. This work was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant agreement No 701932.