Instrumental neutron activation analysis with Compton suppression for the evaluation of foodstuff composition / "Supressão Compton na análise por ativação neutrônica instrumental de produtos agrícolas destinados à alimentação humana"

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2004

RESUMO

Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) is a good option for studying chemical composition of food, allowing the simultaneous determination of several elements. However, the incomplete deposition of gamma-ray energies in the detector crystal due to Compton scatter can elevate the spectrum baseline making difficult the determination of some elements. The problem is particularly important for samples having high activities of radionuclides emitting gamma-rays with energies higher than those to be measured. For such cases, the use of a Compton suppression system can improve the detection limits. Here, the application of a suppression system for the analysis of foodstuff is evaluated. Measurements were carried out with a hyperpure germanium detector with 55 % relative efficiency for the photopeak 1332 keV of 60Co, working in anti-coincidence with two sodium iodine guard detectors (annulus and plug). Suppressed and unsuppressed spectra were simultaneously acquired. Initially, the overall system performance on the reduction of the Compton region was tested using 137Cs. Measuring between 358 and 382 keV, the higher suppression factor was 5.97, being observed a large variation according to the energy region selected for the determination. Reductions were noticed for the suppression factor resulting from increases on counting rate and source-detector distance. The suppression system showed to be stable during twenty weeks of periodic verifications. To evaluate the system performance on real sample analysis, several types and commercial brands of rice, potatoes, beans, peas, chickpeas and lentil were taken. After drying and grinding, samples were irradiated at a thermal neutron flux of 1x10E13 cm-2 s-1 for 8 hours, in the nuclear research reactor IEA-R1m from IPEN/CNEN (Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares). Each sample was measured after decay periods of about 3, 7, 15 and 40 days. Analysis was conducted by the k0 method using the software package Quantu. Fifteen elements were assessed, however Cd and Hg were below detection limits, as well as As, Cr, La e Se for several samples. The content of some elements were noticed to vary according to the product analyzed or its particular type. Different results, for instance, were obtained for K, Rb and Zn in integral, parboiled and polish rice. Among the elements with potentially high toxicity for humans, the only observation was a mean As content of 0.3 mg kg-1 in rice. There was a significant influence of Br, K and Na on the detection limits for elements measured from 3 to 8 days after the irradiation. The ratio between the detection limits calculated for unsuppressed and suppressed spectra showed that the determination of Br, Co, La, Na, Sc and Se was not improved by using the Compton suppression system. For As, Ca, Cd, Cr, Fe, Hg, K, Rb and Zn, an enhancement in the analytical sensitivity was noted, which was strongly dependent on sample composition and experimental conditions. The results demonstrated that the suppression system performance for INAA should be individually evaluated for each type of matrix to be analyzed.

ASSUNTO(S)

radioisotopes spectrometry alimentos de origem vegetal radioisótopos foodstuff espectrometria gamma radiation radiação gama

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