Assessment of radiological hazards in cooking liquid oil, used in Kurdistan region-Iraq

Abstract

In this study, the cooking liquid oil as a principal foodstuff element in meals of Kurdistan region population has been examined for radioactivity assessment. The activity concentration of natural and artificial radionuclides in twenty one oil types available in Kurdistan region markets were calculated using NaI(Tl) gamma-ray spectrometer. The results indicates that the activity concentration of 238U, 232Th and 40K radionuclides were ranged in Bq/L from 0.167- 0.207, 0.148-0.613 and 0.184-12.018, respectively. For 137Cs artificial radionuclide, the activity concentration was below the detection limit. The radiological parameters derived from the primordial radionuclides of radium equivalent Raeq, , Indoor Absorbed Gamma Dose Rate (Din), Indoor Annual Effective Dose Rate (Ein), Annual Committed Effective Dose, Representative Level Index (RLI) and Excess Life Time Cancer Risk were calculated to be well below the recommendation values suggested by UNSCEAR 200. Thus, it’s concluded that the usage of the 21 studied oil samples do not create any radiological risks and safe for consumptions.

Keywords

• cooking oil
• radioactivity
• nai (tl)
• hazard indices
• cancer risk
• cancer risk.