Study of spontaneous deposition of 210Po on various metals and application for activity assessment in cigarette smoke

210Po in environmental samples has been accumulated on various metals using the chemical electrodeposition technique. The 210Po was deposited spontaneously on metal discs after decomposition of the sample in HCl acid and then measured using a ZnS(Ag)α-particle detector. Silver was observed to have the highest deposition efficiency when 210Po deposition on different metals was studied. Copper discs were used in the application of activity assessment in cigarette smoke as this is more available and more economical although silver has a higher efficiency than that of other materials examined. The technique is applied for the analysis of 210Po in tobacco, ash and butt for several brands of imported and domestic cigarettes smoked in Turkey.