Iodine-131 Species in the Stack Exhaust Air of Light Water Reactors

In order to enable a realistic assessment of the ¹³¹I radiation exposure of the population living in the vicinity of light water reactors (LWRs) in normal operation, measurements were taken of the fractions of physicochemical ¹³¹I species in the stack exhaust air of five LWRs in the Federal Republic of Germany over periods of up to 3 yr. It is concluded that for these LWRs generally conservative values of the calculated ¹³¹I radiation exposure result if fractions for the radioecologically critical elemental¹³¹I and for the far less important organic ¹³¹I of 50% each are used.