Soil to rice transfer factor of the natural radionuclides in Malaysia

Abstract

Study on environmental radiation protection and determination of contamination of natural radionuclides such as Uranium, Thorium and Potassium in soil and crops samples are very important as part of environmental health surveillance programs projects to develop a subject of interest in the environmental sciences. In the present study, we have detected natural radioactivity elements U, Th and K in soil and paddy crops. The samples were collected from two places at Kedah in Malaysia. The transfer factor (TF) of uranium for five rural areas was measured by the Gamma ray spectroscopy and high-purity Ge (HPGe) detector as 0.20, 0.16, 0.17, 0.14 and 0.11 respectively. Whereas the TF values of thorium were found to be 0.15, 0.05, 0.04, 0.02 and 0.05, respectively. On the other hand for potassium the TFs values were 1.43, 1.20, 0.11, 0.52 and 0.53 respectively. Similarly, the transfer factors for five selected urban areas were measured 0.05, 0.06, 0.08, 0.04 and 0.09 for uranium, 0.01, 0.05, 0.11 and 0.03 for thorium and 0.24, 1.05, 0.09, 0.14 and 4.12 for potassium respectively. The outcomes satisfied the standards of IAEA