Specific Activity and Radiation Hazard of Radionuclides in Wheat and Bean Produced Near Shazand, Iran

Radionuclides found in foods are harmful to human health. Wheat and bean are among the most important food ingredients in the world. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the specific activity of natural radionuclides in wheat and bean produced near the refinery complex plant.
In order to determine the specific activity of radionuclides, the gamma-ray spectrometry method was used employing a high-purity germanium detector with a relative efficiency of 80%.
Our findings showed that the specific activity of the 226Ra isotope of radium had the ranges <1.31-5.27 and <1-5.06 Bq/kg for wheat and bean samples, respectively. Moreover, the specific activity of the 232Th isotope of thorium was in the range of not detected (ND)-4.09 and ND-3.62 Bq/kg with the mean values of 2.19 and 2.69 Bq/kg for wheat and bean samples, respectively.The specific activity of the 40K isotope of potassium was obtained as 103.19-168.94 and 129.22-568.98 Bq/kg with the mean values of 142.21 and 458.37 Bq/kg for wheat and bean samples, respectively. The annual effective dose for wheat and bean intake was 0.11-0.52 and 0.02-0.18 mSv, respectively. Furthermore, the mean of excess lifetime cancer risk for wheat and bean samples was calculated as 1.06×10-3 and 0.11×10-3, respectively. The latter values are lower than the world average for bean samples.
According to the results of this study, the radiological parameters of wheat were higher than the global average and reference value, which may be due to ash dispersion in this area. For bean, these parameters were lower than the mean value. As a result, it could be concluded that bean is not considered as a threat to consumer health.