Abstract
Background: Ingestion of 210Po laden seafood accounts for a substantial amount of the effective dose of 210Po. Among seafood items, mollusks, especially domestically produced oysters and mussels, are highly enriched in 210Po and are consumed in large quantities in Korea. Materials and Methods: Oysters and mussels around the Korean coasts were collected from major farm areas in November 2013. Samples were spiked with an aliquot of 209Po as a yield tracer, and they were digested with 6 mol·L-1 HNO3 and H2O2. The 210Po and 209Po were spontaneously deposited onto a silver disc in an acidic solution of 0.5 mol·L-1 HCl and measured using an alpha spectrometer. The activity concentrations of 210Pb and 210Po were decay corrected to the sampling date, accounting for the possible in-growth and decay of 210Po. Results and Discussion: 210Po activity concentrations in oysters were in a range from 41.3 to 206 Bq·(kg-ww)-1 and mussels in a range from 42.9 to 46.7 Bq·(kg-ww)-1. The 210Po activity concentration of oysters in the turbid Western coast was higher than the Southern coast. The 210Po activity concentration of the oysters was positively correlated (R2 = 0.89) with those of the suspended particulate matter in the surface water. The calculated annual effective dose of 210Po from oysters and mussels consumed by the Korean population was 21-104 and 5.01-5.46 μSv·y-1. The combined effective dose due to the consumption of oysters and mussels appears to account for about 35 ± 19% of that arising from seafood consumption in the Korean population. Conclusion: The annual effective dose of 210Po for oysters in the Korean population was found to be higher than other countries. The total annual effective dose of 210Po due to consumption of oysters and mussels consumed in Korea was found to be 76 ± 42 μSv ·y-1 , accounting for 28 ± 16% of the total effective dose of 210Po from food in Korea.
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