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Radioxenon concentration data collected at International Noble Gas Experiment (INGE) monitoring sites in the Northern Hemisphere are demonstrably impacted by emissions from medical isotope (MI) production facilities at Chalk River (CRL), Ontario and Fleurus, Belgium [Saey, J Environ Radioact 100(5):396–406, 2009]. Temporary cessation at these European MI facilities in the latter half of 2008 allowed an opportunity to assess the relative impact of distant MI facilities at INGE monitoring stations. In particular, the concentration distributions at the measurement sites and calculated sensitivities to the putative emission locations through atmospheric transport modelling (ATM) of meteorological Source Receptor Sensitivity (SRS) computations were used to study MI impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radioxenon activity concentrations are monitored globally using the International Monitoring System (IMS) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation, improving the monitoring community's ability to detect radionuclide signatures from an underground nuclear test (UNT). An IMS-like noble gas system is in operation at AWE (Aldermaston, UK) and can collect and measure radioxenon isotopes in environmental air samples. When operated in this mode, data produced is analysed at the UK National Data Centre (NDC) and significant detection events are flagged for further investigation. This work discusses a number of significant detection events analysed using the operational system deployed at the UK NDC, which includes atmospheric transport simulations and a real-time stack-monitoring data feed from the nearest medical isotope production facility in Belgium. A comparison of the expected radionuclide contributions with measured detections is presented, including a comparison of the isotopic ratios for the radioxenon isotopes of interest (133Xe, 131mXe, 133mXe, 135Xe). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]