Measuring the Risk Factors of Radionuclides and Their Radioactivity for Food Items Collected from Local Markets in the City of Hilla-Iraq

Saif M.  Alghazaly

Saif M. Alghazaly Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Babylon, Iraq

Keywords: Radioactivity,, Gama spectrometer, risk factors, radium equivalent, food items

Abstract

In this study, the concentration of natural radionuclide activity, risk factors, and annual effective dose in 18 samples of consumer food in the city of Hilla were calculated using a gamma-ray detector due to the high degree of accuracy in the spectroscopic measurement of the detector. The average activity concentrations of 232Th, 238U, and 40K were found to be 9.67±0.149, 6.08±0.145, and 220.21±0.895 Bqkg-1, respectively. The average radium equivalent activity in all samples was calculated as 36.87 Bqkg-1, which is less than the permissible limit of 370 Bqkg-1. The average values of the external risk indicators and internal risk indicators for the food samples were 0.10 and 0.12, respectively, which are less than unity in all models, which indicates that nutritional models are not harmful. The average gamma hazard index (Iγ) was determined to be 0.28. The average annual effective dose equivalent was calculated as 135.67 μSvy-1, It is less than the permissible limits recommended by the United Nations Committee on the Effects of Radiation. Radiation is 1000 μSvy-1. These results may be useful for creating a database to evaluate the concentration of natural radioactivity in foodstuffs consumed in the city of Hilla.

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