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Uranium concentrations and its isotopes in baby food of Iraq

  • Farqad Abbas Taher and Ali Abid Abojassim ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: April 15, 2024

Abstract

This study determines uranium concentrations and isotopes (238U, 235U, and 234U) in baby food samples collected from Iraqi markets using solid-state nuclear track detector technical (CR-39). Also, some radiological hazard parameters such as annual committed effective dose (E U) and risk of an excess cancer fatality per million persons (RECFPMP) for the same study samples were calculated using theoretical equations. The samples in the present study were classified into three varieties: cereals and cereal products, vegetables and fruits, and biscuits. The results show that the average uranium concentration (mg/kg or ppm) values in cereals and cereal products, vegetables and fruits, and biscuits were 0.71 ± 0.01, 0.81 ± 0.04, and 0.72 ± 0.031, respectively. At the same time, the average values of 238U, 235U, and 234U in all samples of the present study were 9.08 ±0.17 Bq/kg, 0.42 ± 0.0081 Bq/kg, and 9.33 ± 0.18 Bq/kg, respectively. The total average of E U (mSv/y) due to all uranium isotopes (238U, 235U, and 234U) in cereals and cereal products, vegetables and fruits, and biscuits were 0.042 ± 0.0006, 0.039 ± 0.001, and 0.034 ± 0.001, respectively. Moreover, it was found that the average values of RECFPMP were 0.159 ± 0.002 in cereals and cereal products samples, 0.154 ± 0.007 in vegetables and fruits samples, and 0.130 ± 0.005 in biscuits samples. Uranium concentrations and the total annual committed effective dose in all baby food samples comply with the worldwide limits approved by UNSCEAR, which state safe limitations (1.7 mg/kg) and (0.32 mSv/y), respectively. So, one may conclude that there is no danger of uranium concentrations in the case of baby consumption.


Corresponding author: Ali Abid Abojassim, Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Kufa, Al-Najaf, Iraq, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

The principal author expressed gratitude to the other authors for their constructive comments, which improved and brought freshness to the work.

  1. Research ethics: All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study.

  2. Author contributions: Each author subscribes to conceiving and designing the analysis; Collected the data; Contributing data or analysis tools; Performed the analysis; Writing the manuscript.

  3. Competing interests: There is no competing interests.

  4. Research funding: There is no funding.

  5. Data availability: Data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

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Received: 2023-12-15
Accepted: 2024-03-26
Published Online: 2024-04-15
Published in Print: 2024-06-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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