Assessment of the Heavy Metals and Natural Radioactivity in Phosphate Mines and Occupational Health Effects at Some Egyptian Regions

In this work, the specific activities of natural radionuclides, namely 238U series, 232Th series and 40K, have been measured in collected sedimentary phosphate deposits samples from El-Hamraween, El-Quser and Safaga phosphate mines in Egypt. HPGe γ-spectrometry was used. This study was undertaken to estimate the radiation hazard indices in phosphate mining at the studied mines on their occupational workers, to establish correlation relationships between the some measured heavy metals such as As, Cd and Pb in blood workers and their concentration in phosphate rock ores and to determinate the biomarkers in the blood workers such as malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD). The phosphate mine sample of El-Hamrawein has the lowest activity concentration of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K in comparison to the phosphate mine samples of El-Quseir and Safaga (El-Hamrawein kg-1, 122.4 to 188.3 Bq·kg-1 and 115.4 to 165.8 Bq·kg-1 for Safaga, El-Quseir and El-Hamrawein, respectively. For 232Th activity concentrations varied from 135.6 to 212.3 Bq·kg-1, 112.8 to 167.4 Bq·kg-1 and 132.8 to 188.6 Bq·kg-1 for Safaga, El-Quseir and El-Hamrawein, respectively. For 40K activity concentrations varied from 225.2 to 312.8 Bq·kg-1, 168.7 to 268.9 Bq·kg-1 and 95.2 to 155.8 Bq·kg-1 for Safaga, El-Quseir and El-Hamrawein, respectively. The workers of old ages have higher concentration of the investigated heavy metals than those of young ages. There is a good relation between the concentration of the investigated metals in phosphate mine samples and their concentration in blood of the occupational workers in these mines.

Evaluation of Some Radioactive Materials and Heavy Metals in Marine Environment of Alexandria Coastline, Egypt

The present work is carried out to obtain quantitative information of some natural radioactive materials and heavy metals in water and sediment samples along the Alexandria Coastline, as a step to construct the baseline map of the background radioactivity level in the Egyptian environment and also as a base data to assess the future physicochemical changes of surface coastal water and sediment in the studied area. The distribution of natural gamma emitting radionuclides such as 238U, 232Th and 40K has been established by gamma spectrometry. The results show that the area of Alexandria coast is affected by the existence of high back-ground radiation from the Rashid coast at the eastern side which has high levels of radioisotope concentrations due to black sand deposits which are dominant in this area. The absorbed dose rate (D, nGy·h-1), annual effective dose equivalent, external hazard index (Hex) and representative level index (Ir) of the investigated radioactive materials were calculated. The concentration of Pb2+, Cd2+, Ni2+, Mn2+, Cu2+, Co2+, Zn2+ and Cr3+ ions has been determined using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. The total dissolved solids (TDS) in water samples ranged from 33,000 mg/l to 42,000 mg/l, the salinity ranged from 37.9% to 40.5% and pH ranged from 7.6 to 7.9. Some of the sediment quality guidelines are calculated and they are the metal pollution index (MPI), the contamination factor (CF), degree of contamination (Cdeg), and Pollution load index (PLI).