Soil-To-Fluted Pumpkin Transfer Of Natural Radionuclides In Farm Lands In Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

I. M. Essen, A. A. Essiett, I. E. Essien, K. R. Ekanem, M. C. Bede, I. O. Ehiwe

Abstract


This work is aimed at evaluating the radionuclides transfer from soil to fluted pumpkin in farm lands in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The activity concentrations of 238U, 232Th, 226Ra and 40K were measured in fluted pumpkin and soil samples using high purity Germanium (HPGe) Detector. The mean activity concentrations of 238U, 226Ra, 232Th and 40K in the soils samples ranged from 43. 26 ± 2.53 Bq/Kg to 80.11± 4.26 Bq/kg, 17.45 ± 0.96 Bq/ Kg to 28.71 ± 1.48 Bq/Kg, 23.83 ± 1.27 Bq/ Kg to 53.27 ± 2.84 Bq/Kg and 4.02 ± 0.36 to 43.83 ± 2.35 Bq/Kg respectively. The mean activity concentrations of radionuclides in the fluted pumpkin for  40K, 238U, 232Th and  226Ra ranged from 805.28 ± 42.89 to  1582.93 ± 83.72 Bq/Kg,  below detection limit (BDL) to 86.96 ± 5.63 Bq/Kg,  4.81 ± 0.84 to 46 .23  ±3. 45 Bq/Kg and 7. 17 ± 0.83 to 25.28 ± 1.58 Bq/Kg respectively.  The radionuclides transfer factor (TF) obtained in this work varies from farm to farm and ranged from 10.36 to 87.84 for 40K, BDL to 1. 28 for 238U, 0.13 to 0.95 for 232Th and 0.31 to 0.92 for 226Ra. The TF values for radionuclides obtained for this work were lower than 1 except for 40K.  This suggests that consumption of the fluted pumpkin in these areas might not pose a high radiological hazard to its consumers while for 40K, the human body has an internal mechanism to eliminate its excess in the body.

Keywords


Radionuclides, Activity concentration,soil, fluted pumpkin, Transfer Factor.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.52155/ijpsat.v28.2.3561

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