Assessing radiological hazards in building materials: a case study with a focus on the ceramic industry in Emilia-Romagna, Italy

The building materials industry encounters naturally occurring radioactive materials problems and elicits growing attention in radiation protection regulations. However, the availability of useful, comprehensive data on radiological hazard in building materials is unfortunately scant: data are few and far between. In the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, there is a flourishing ceramic industry, with a vast production of building materials, particularly tiles and bricks. Our laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Radioactivity has collaborated with this industry since the year 2000, collecting over time a vast number of samples and processing them through high-resolution gamma spectrometry, to obtain a large dataset of radionuclide contents. This paper presents a radiation protection study based on said dataset, aimed at assessing the radiological risk associated with these materials: in particular, different indexes, internationally accepted, and dose rates are calculated in compliance with well-established EU algorithms. Statistical treatment of data is also presented.