Transfer from Soil to Grass and Statistical Analysis of Natural Occurring Radionuclides in Soil from Phosphate Mining and Processing Sites in Maritime Region of Togo.

Abstract

Natural radionuclides activity concentrations of 226Ra, 228Ra, and 40K in soil and grass samples, statistical analysis of these radionuclides and transfer factors (TFs) from soil to the grass were carried out from phosphate mining and processing sites in southern areas of Togo using gamma-ray spectrometry-based High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector. The average activity concentrations of 226Ra, 228Ra, and 40K were found within the range usually measured worldwide. Statistical analysis was done by investigating the skewness, the kurtosis, and the density distribution of radionuclides in the study areas. Both skewness and kurtosis displayed that the activity concentrations of soil and grass samples in the dischargement waste site (Kpémé) and mining site (Hahotoé) exhibited slightly positively skewed, negatively skewed, leptokurtic, and platykurtic distributions. The TFs for 226Ra, 228Ra, and 40K from dischargement waste soil to grass were evaluated. The average transfer factors of 226Ra, 228Ra, and 40K in the phosphate processing area were found to be 0.16, 0.32, and 8.42, respectively. 226Ra and 228Ra TFs values were found to within the limit of worldwide measure values while that of 40K was to be larger than the values measured in other countries. The average TF value of 8.42 for 40K was 8 times higher than the average value of unity, showing its large intake by vegetables. The high TFs for 40K could be explained by the extensive application of phosphate fertilizers to soils when growing vegetables.

Background gamma radiation and associated health implications for Ifo-Dagbolu-Ajakaye, Ogun state

“…This indicate that the level of exposure to background gamma radiation could be attributed majorly to thorium and its decay products. Kurtosis varied from -3.33 to +3.87indicating that the data can be assumed to be closely symmetrically distributed [19]. Radiological health risk indicators showed the same positive values of kurtosis similar to that of the specific activity of thorium, while those of 238 U and 40 K gave negative values.…”

“…Estimated values of Raeq, outdoor and indoor dose rates, Dout and Din,are shown in Figure 6 and their mean values are displayed in Table 2, while the evaluated values of gamma index, Iγ, outdoor and indoor hazard indicators, Hex and Hin, annual effective dose rate (outdoor), AEDRout and excess lifetime cancer risk, ELCR, to the dwellers in the examined locations are shown in Figure 7 and their mean values are indicated in Table 2. As shown in Table 2, skewness ranged from 0.25 to 1.92 and the data can be assumed to display normal distribution according to [19]. All the radiological health indices had values of skewness greater than unity similar to that of the specific activity of thorium, while the values for 238 U and 40 K were both less than unity.…”

“…Table 3 shows negative but poor interdependence between specific activities of 238 U and the health risk indicators. The moderate and positive correlation between 40 K and the health risk parameters may not pose any challenge as potassium is homeostatically controlled in man [19].…”

Activity Concentration of Natural Radionuclides in Agricultural Soil, Fertilizer, their Transfer to Some Commonly Used Cereal Types, and Associated Health Hazards, Holeta, Ethiopia

“…As for U-238 was specified through its progeny and . On the other hand, activity concentration of Th-232 was identified via its daughters 911.2,and 338.3 keV), and Pb-212 (238.6 keV) (Sidique E., Hassan S. H. & Dawoud M. M., 2022;Hazou E. et. al., 2021).…”