Determinations of 210Pb contents in food, diet, environmental samples and estimations of internal dose due to daily intakes.

210Pb in food, diet and environmental samples collected in China during the period of 2015-2017 was analyzed and discussed in this study. The activity concentrations of 210Pb were measured by gamma spectrometry, the average of which in sea food, cereal, mushroom, duplicate diet, soil, sediment, biomass ash and aerosol samples were 1.22 ±â€¯0.69 Bq kg-1 fresh weight, 2.77 ±â€¯0.33 Bq kg-1 fresh weight, 8.2 Bq kg-1 dry weight, 1.21 Bq kg-1 dry weight, 172 ±â€¯44 Bq kg-1 dry weight, 87.2 ±â€¯39.2 Bq kg-1 dry weight, 140 ±â€¯185 Bq kg-1 and 813 ±â€¯520 µBq m-3, respectively. The results were higher than those observed in various countries except for seafood. The annual effective dose due to mushroom, duplicate diet and aerosol were estimated. Furthermore, the transfer factor (TF) of 210Pb from soil to some species of mushroom were also considered. This study provided useful data for radiation protection of the public.

Radionuclides in mushrooms and soil-to-mushroom transfer factors in certain areas of China.

Activity concentrations of 238U, 226Ra, 228Ra, 137Cs and 40K in 64 mushroom samples collected in China from Yunnan, Fujian and Heilongjiang Provinces, were measured. Gamma-ray emissions were determined by using high-purity germanium (HPGe) γ spectrometry. The range of concentrations (Bq kg-1 dry weight) for 238U, 226Ra, 228Ra, 137Cs and 40K in all investigated mushroom samples were from 0.12 to 12, 0.05 to 7.5, 0.14 to 14, MDC(<0.01) to 339, and 396 to 1880, respectively. Activity concentrations of 137Cs in mushrooms showed some variation between species sampled at the same site. To calculate soil to mushroom transfer factors, levels of radionuclide in 15 paired soil samples and mushrooms were also investigated. The median transfer factors for 238U, 226Ra, 228Ra, 137Cs and 40K were 8.32 × 10-2, 3.03 × 10-2, 6.69 × 10-2, 0.40 and 1.19, respectively. The results were compared with values of other areas.