Radioactivity Measurement of Nuts and Seeds Available in Erbil City Markets

摘要

A study of natural and artificial radionuclides in nut and seed samples consumed in Erbil city has been performed. The NaI(TI) scintillation detector and nuclear track detector were used to measure the activity concentration of ~(40)K, ~(232)Th, ~(22o)Ra, ~(137)Cs and ~(222)Rn; respectively. The measured activity in samples ranges from (207.63 to 533.88) Bq.kg~(-1) with the mean value of 290.6 Bq.kg~(-1) for ~(40)K, (0.031 to 0.52) Bq.kg~(-1) with a mean value of (0.149) Bq.kg~(-1)for ~(226)Ra (0.101 to 0.554) Bq.kg~(-1) with the mean value of (0.218) Bq.kg~(-1) for ~(232)Th, 0.033 to 0.0.266 Bq.kg~(-1)with the mean value of (0.111) Bq.kg~(-1) for ~(137)Cs and radon concentration ranged from 128.77to 298.1 Bq.m~(-3) with an average value of 202.7 Bq.m~(-3). To assess the radiological hazard due to natural radioactivity, the average values of the radium equivalent activity (Ra_eq), external hazard index (Hex), internal hazard index (Hi_n) and Gamma index (I_y) have been calculated to be (22.67) Bq/kg, (0.061), (1.12) and (0.195) respectively.