Radionuclide concentration and radon exhalation in new mix design of brick produced reusing NORM by-products: The influence of mineralogy and texture Coletti, Chiara Brattick, Erika Cineli, Giorgia Cultrone , Giuseppe V. Maritan, Lara Mazzoli, Claudio Mostacci, Domiziano Tositti, Laura Sassi, Raffaele Bricks Radioactivity Radon Building materials Industrial by-products This study was funded by the University of Padova (Italy), Research Project CPDA134483 (Raffaele Sassi), the Junta de Andalucía Research Group RNM179 (Spain), and the Spanish Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness (Spain), Research Project MAT2016-75889-R (Giuseppe Cultrone). The authors are grateful to the company SanMarcoTerreal Italia srl for collaborating in providing materials and supporting technologies. Many industrial by-products contain Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) that normally represent a cost in terms of monitoring, risk management and storage. When included in new mix designs of bricks, these materials may become a valuable sustainable resource. Before marketing, companies involved in development and commercialization of these new building materials ensure safety related to radiation, usually by assessing radon-related risk. According to the Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom, both raw materials and final products used in building constructions need to be tested for activity concentration. The present work explores the radionuclide concentration and the radon exhalation of bricks obtained recycling different types of potentially radioactive wastes: i) trachyte as byproduct resulting from quarrying operations, and ii) two different types of industrial sludge derived from ceramic tiles industry. Raw materials were studied to foresee any potential radioactive risk derived from their use as secondary raw materials, while bricks were investigated to assess the influence of mineralogy and texture on their radioactive properties and their effective radon-risk. The results obtained here show that, although radon emanation in bricks is primarily determined by radionuclide concentration in the raw materials, textural features significantly affect radon mobility and exhalation. 2025-05-29T09:42:47Z 2025-05-29T09:42:47Z 2020 journal article C. Coletti et al. Construction and Building Materials, 260, 119820. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.119820 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/104338 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2020.119820 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier