Alpha and gamma spectrometry for the radiological characterization of animal feed

Consumption of food is the most common pathway of radionuclides into the human body. Foods of animal origin are important in the European human diet. Therefore, radiation control of animal feeds and animal products will contribute to producing food for human nutrition without, or with low risk, for human health. This paper presents data obtained by alpha and gamma spectrometric analysis for natural radionuclides and 137Cs in animal feed. 40K, 228Ac, 212Pb, 208Tl, 214Pb, 214Bi and 137Cs were determined by gamma spectrometry, 210Po by alpha spectrometry. In all samples examined, 137Cs activity concentration was below the detection limit (0.25 Bqkgfw-1) except for one sample. The mean activity concentration was 2.26 ± 2.27 Bq kgfw-1 for 214Pb; 2.42 ± 2.24 Bq kgfw-1 for 214Bi; 1.76 ± 1.17 Bq kgfw-1 for 212Pb; 1.88 ± 1.42 Bq kgfw-1for 208Tl; 2.29 ± 1.93 Bq kgfw-1 for 228Ac; 3.48 ± 3.48 Bq kgfw-1 for 210Po, and 322.2 ± 115.6 Bq kgfw-1 for 40K. The Principal Components Analysis showed differences in the radioactivity content between samples with dicalcium phosphate and without dicalcium phosphate explaining 76.5 % of the total variance. A significant difference for 210Po and 40K activity concentration was detected between the samples with and without dicalcium phosphate.