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Indian Journal of Pure & Applied Physics (IJPAP) >
IJPAP Vol.48 [2010] >
IJPAP Vol.48(11) [November 2010] >
| Title: | Estimation of radioactivity in tobacco |
| Authors: | Nain, Mahabir
Gupta, Monika
Chauhan, R P
Kant, K
Sonkawade, R G
Chakarvarti, S K |
| Keywords: | Track density
Plantation
Tobacco
Fertilizers |
| Issue Date: | Nov-2010 |
| Publisher: | NISCAIR-CSIR, India |
| Abstract: | The
link between cigarette smoke and cancer has long been established. Smokers are
ten times at greater risk of developing lung cancer than that of non-smokers.
Tobacco fields and plants also have higher concentration of uranium and
consequently large contents of 210 Po
and 210 Pb belonging to uranium and radium decay series. These
radio-nuclides have long association with tobacco plants. 210Pb and 210Po,
decay products of the uranium series get dissolved in water and are first
transported into plants and subsequently to the human being. Also, the uptake
of radio nuclides into roots from the soils and phosphate fertilizers along
with direct deposition of 210Pb by rainfall represents the principal
mechanism of incorporation of 210Pb and 210Po into the
tobacco plants. Uranium present in soil enters the plants through roots and
gets distributed in various parts of the tobacco plants. This phenomenon may
cause high intake of uranium and its radioactive decay products leading to
harmful effects in human being. In the present work, Gamma spectrometry (HPGe
detector of high-resolution gamma spectrometry system) has been used at Inter University Accelerator
Center (IUAC), New Delhi, for the measurement of activity concentrations of 238U,
232Th and 40K in some tobacco samples. The alpha radioactivity of the
leaves of the tobacco plants was measured using plastic track detectors LR-115
Type-II manufactured by Kodak. Measurement of track densities (track cm-2
day-1) shows variation on the upper face and the bottom face of the
leaves for the plants. The track density due to alpha particles is higher at
bottom face as compared to top face of the leaves |
| Page(s): | 820-822 |
| CC License: |  CC Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India |
| ISSN: | 0975-1041 (Online); 0019-5596 (Print) |
| Source: | IJPAP Vol.48(11) [November 2010]
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