Activity of natural radionuclides in animal feed

Abstract

Radioactive elements like 232Th, 235U and 238U along with their decay products (e.g. 226Ra) are present in most environmental matrices and can be transferred to living beings by different pathways which can lead to the sources of exposure to humans. For these reasons, it was necessary to monitor those natural radionuclides in feed samples in order to assess the potential hazards. Thorium and Uranium content was determined using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Data analysis was performed by MassHunter Workstation software. The abundance of 235U/238U is 0.72%/99.28%. The study included a total of 14 various animal feed samples. The results show that the highest concentrations of the activities of 232Th, 235U and 238U found in phosphates of mineral feed, monocalcium phosphate and phosphosel were significantly higher than the activities of natural radionuclides in other examined samples.