Natural Occurring Radioactive Materials in Dusty Air of Baghdad City – Iraq

Journal of Physics: Conference SeriesVolume 1279, Issue 1, 31 July 2019, Article number 0120501st International Scientific Conference Al-Ayen University; Al-Ayen UniversityAl Nasiriya, Thi-Qar; Iraq; 30 March 2019 through 31 March 2019; Code 150120
Natural Occurring Radioactive Materials in Dusty Air of Baghdad City – Iraq
Abbood, A.K.a, Shafiq, M.S.b, Kadhim, S.B.c, Shafik, S.S.a,c
aDept. of Physics, College of Science, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
bMinstry of Education, Directorate of Education of the Second Rusafa, Baghdad, Iraq
cCollege of Medical and Health Technology, Al – Ayen University, Thi-Qar, Iraq

Abstract
Baghdad has lost many areas of its green belt, as well as the increase of residential and commercial buildings at the expense of gardens, resulting in increased amounts of dust in the atmosphere of the city. So it is necessary to study the content of this dust of natural occurring radioactive material (NORM) and then estimated the annual inhalation radiation effective dose (AIRED). This is achieved by selecting three districts of Baghdad city. Dust has been collected at different intervals and at different elevations. Gamma spectroscopy with NaI(Tl) detector that fully operated by GENE2006 program has been used to measure the specific activity. The overall average of the obtained results of NORM isotopes were 8110 Bq/m3 for Uranium – 238, 5660 Bq/m3 for Thorium – 232, and 36980 Bq/m3 for Potassium – 40, respectively, while the overall average result AIRED was 68.68 nSv/y. However, the results are within the allowed values of the international agencies. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.
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