Radiation hazards of the moassel consumed in Baghdad/Iraq using NaI(Tl) gamma spectroscopy

Abstract

Smoking narghile has become a common occurrence among young Iraqi people since several years ago, moassel is the name given to the tobacco dentifrice smoked by Iraqi people, and it consists of tobacco, honey, glycerin and flavors. Tobacco which is the main component of the moassel has a little amount of some radioisotopes, but nevertheless few studies have addressed the radioactivity and the potential risks in moassel. Samples of the most common moassel types consumed in Iraq are collected from the markets, using gamma spectroscopy NaI(Tl), three natural radionuclides 40K, 214Bi and 208Tl are investigated in the studied samples. The results show that the mean radium equivalent is 10.272 Bq/kg, the mean gamma-absorbed dose is 4.089 nGy/h, the mean annual effective dose is0.051 mSv/y, the mean external hazard index is 0.026, the mean internal hazard index is 0.035, the mean gamma index is 0.034, the mean alpha index is 0.017, and the annual gonadal dose equivalent is 0.031 mSv/y. A question near is done in this work to investigate the annual smoked mass of the moassel by capita to compute some of the transaction. The results show that the total daily inhalation is 3.027 mSv/y, the total annual effective dose is 0.002 × 10−6 mSv/y, and the total excessive lifetime cancer risk is 0.00501 mSv/y. The study concludes that all results are below than the recommended limits given by (UNSCEAR 2000).