Comparison of Natural Radioactivity of Commonly Used Fertilizer Materials in Egypt and Japan

Abstract

Specific activities of238 U, 232 Th, and 40 K in the environment have been redistributed by the use of fertilizers in agriculture so their concentrations in fertilizer materials should be measured to identify the safe utilization of fertilizers. In the present work, the specific activities of these radionuclides in five commonly used fertilizers in Egypt and five fertilizers used in Japan were measured by HPGe and -ray spectrometry. The average values of 238 U, 232 Th, and 40 K in Japanese fertilizers were less than their values in Egyptian fertilizers but both had some samples with specific activities greater than the recommended limiting values. The radiological hazards of radium equivalent activity (Ra eq ), external ( ex ) and internal ( in ) indexes, alpha and gamma indexes, and annual effective dose, due to the presence of these radionuclides, were calculated and compared with each other.

Sediment source fingerprinting: benchmarking recent outputs, remaining challenges and emerging themes

“…Similar problems are encountered in using 137 Cs, 241 Am and 14 C. All have a known temporal fallout history associated with atmospheric thermonuclear weapons testing and/or nuclear accidents. Several long-lived radionuclides such as 238 U and 235 U may have become enriched in agricultural topsoil where phosphate fertilizers are used as the North African rock phosphate from which a significant amount of fertilizer is derived often contains significant amounts of radioactive uranium (Sahu et al 2014;Hassan et al 2017). Neither of these isotopes or their daughters would be useful for fingerprinting over recent timescales in the same way that phosphorus could not be used directly for fingerprinting.…”

Detecting of the Risk Indicator Parameters of Radioactive Nuclides Around the Stores of Fertilizer and Pesticides, Al Jazeera Agricultural Project Using the Germanium Detector

“…Studying the natural radioactivity in the soil to assess the radiation dose to which humans are exposed which causes future health risks in the environment surrounding the population and because of the changes that occur in the environment natural radioactive materials can reach dangerous levels in certain circumstances [1,5]. Therefore, radiation emitted from fertilizer has the potential to When farmers and workers are exposed to a high level of use of fertilizers and pesticides the natural radioactivity in fertilizers and pesticides must be monitored which is very important for human protection in accordance with the Natural Radiation Protection Law [6]. Ground radiation in the soil may be dangerous to people, depending on ways of transmission to people, and internal and external exposure to gamma rays, therefore it is very necessary to assess the concentration of the natural radionuclide's in soil and water [7].…”