The radioactivity of atmospheric krypton in 1949–1950

The chemical element krypton, whose principal source is the atmosphere, had a long-lived radioactive content, in the mid-1940s, of less than 5 dpm per liter of krypton. In the late 1940s, this content had risen to values in the range of 100 dpm per liter. It is now some hundred times higher than the late 1940 values. This radioactivity is the result of the dissolving of nuclear fuel for military and civilian purposes, and the release thereby of the fission product krypton-85 (half-life = 10.71 years, fission yield = 0.2%). The present largest emitter of krypton-85 is the French reprocessing plant at Cap-de-la-Hague.

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