Determination uranium concentration of teeth in Al-Samawa city using the CR-39 nuclear track detector

Abstract

In this research, The uranium concentration in teeth samples was measured using a CR-39 track detector and the fission tracks registration method., for 25 samples of teeth distributed across Samawa City, each weighing (0.7) grams and (2) mm in thickness. Exposed done after preparing the samples into small spherical pellets covered with a 1x1cm2 CR-39 detector. These samples with detectors together were irradiated using an (241Am-Be) source with a neutron flux (5x103 n.cm-2.s-1) for one week. These samples were compared with standard samples to find uranium concentration. The results show that the maximum value of uranium concentration was (2.273 ppm) and value of the minimum uranium concentration was (0.626 ppm) and the concentration of uranium in females was higher than in males, the concentration of uranium was affected by several factors: the region of study, gender and age of the human.

Keywords

• Uranium concentration
• Track density
• CR-39 detector
• etching time
• 241Am-Be