210Po Activity Concentrations in Cooked Marine Food

Abstract

In this work the 210Po activity concentrations determined in the most common marine species consumed by the population of Southern Spain are shown and discussed. The determinations have been done on aliquots of the raw edible materials and in aliquots previously cooked in the usual way they are ingested. The obtained activity concentrations in the edible parts of the cooked products ranged up to three orders of magnitude with concentration factors for some species as high as 104-105 L/kg fresh weight, and due to the cooking processes in some cases a considerable variation in the 210Po activity concentrations have been observed in relation with the determined ones in the aliquots not processed. The importance of this study is based in the fact that 210Po is one of the main contributors to the radiation dose received by the population by ingestion, being the 210Po doses by ingestion particularly high when a population has a diet with a high proportion of marine products.