Author : Shafik Shakir Shafik, Bushra Ali Ahmed, and Zuhair Samir Abdulalsada

Tobacco contains minute quantities of radioactive isotopes of Uranium series, which is radioactive carcinogenic. Smoking of tobacco and its products increases the internal intake and radiation dose due to natural radionuclides. In a number of studies, inhalation of some naturally-occurring radionuclides via smoking has been considered to be one of the most significant causes of lung cancer. In this work, forty seven tobacco samples were collected from the Iraqi markets. Uranium in tobacco was measured using the Kinetic Phosphorescence Analyzer (KPA) techniques. The results demonstrated that Uranium concentrations ranged from 1.371±0.0018 to 3.424±0.0075μg/g, with an overall average about 2.224 μg/g. The annual effective dose due to inhalation for adults (smokers) for Uranium varied from 0.144 to 0.361 mSv/y with an overall average 0.234 mSv/y. The results illustrated that the German tobacco cigarettes have the highest concentration of Uranium compared to the cigarettes produced from other global origins and consumed in the Iraqi markets. Results showed that all tobacco samples are contained Uranium concentrations with varied rates.

Keywords: Uranium Concentration, Annual Effective Dose, Tobacco Cigarettes, KPA.

Article published in International Journal of Current  Engineering  and Technology, Vol.4,No.1 (Feb- 2014)