Estimation of Radiation levels due to Organic Agricultural Fertilizers

Abstract

The usage of organic fertilizers in Iraq is increased becauseof the land reclamation and agriculture activities. The ore of someorganic fertilizers contains various a mounts of natural radioactiveelements such as 238U, 232Th and 40K. For this reason, organicfertilizers are considered one of many sources of radionuclide andradioactivity in the environment. So, it becomes necessary to studythe naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs). In orderto assess the level index for organic fertilizers, the specificactivities of 238U, 232Th and 40K were measured by using a gammaray spectrometer based on a NaI(Tl) detector.The results show that the specific activities of 238U, 232Th and40K are (11.53-68.71 Bq/kg), (10.78-52.33 Bq/kg) and (165.21-3592.78 Bq/kg) respectively. The radium equivalent activity werealso calculated and found to vary from (155.40-2842.86 Bq/kg),the radium equivalent activities were lower the world average ineight samples. In general, the results indicated that the highestlevel of radium equivalent activity was in animal organicfertilizers.The level index of organic fertilizers was calculated and themaximum value of level index is 2.91 which is found in localanimal organic fertilizer, while the minimum value is 0.3 which isfound in imported plant organic fertilizer.