Natural Radioactivity in Various Water Tasters Using y-Ray Measurement

Abstract

This paper has explained the contamination of natural radionuclides in various water testers using gamma ray measurement which is very significant as part of health scrutiny programs to progress the ecological knowledge. Natural radioactivity was determined in five groups of water samples (rain, mine, tap, drinking and mineral) from different places at Johor, Malaysia by means of gamma-ray spectrometry tool. The annual cumulative effective doses were estimated 6.05 mSv /yr for rain, 9.49 mSv/ yr for mine, 6.39 mSv /yr for tap, 5.67 mSv /yr for drinking, and 6.01 mSv/yr for mineral water. Among the five samples, mine water gave the highest value in annual effective dose measurement. The measured data are compared with the reported value. The activity concentrations of five water samples provided that bottled drinking water was the lowest than other water samples. This research is useful to provide some information to the public about the amount of radionuclide content uranium, thorium and potassium that present in water.