Environmental impact assessment of phosphate fertilizers and phosphogypsum waste: Elemental and radiological effects

Abstract

The radiological and elemental hazards indices of phosphate fertilizers and phosphogypsum waste were investigated by determination of their components concentration using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) then comparing the resultant concentrations with the acceptable limit. The radioactivity of 40K, 232Th and 238U within the samples were determined using passive gamma ray spectroscopy. The environmental impact risk resulting from the utilization of these materials was evaluated by the computation of some parameters including; absorbed dose rate, annual effective dose equivalent, radium equivalent activity, hazard index for γ-rays, excess lifetime cancer risk, alpha index and annual gonadal dose equivalent. The results illustrated that these materials pose a radiological threat to the creature health. For non-carcinogenic risks, the data was fed into human health risk models to evaluate the potential health risk of heavy metals by computing the average daily intake of each pollutant via variant exposure pathways and subsequent determination of the hazard quotient, hazard index and total exposure hazard index. For carcinogenic risks, the incremental lifetime cancer risk was calculated. The outcomes give rise to that some parameters values are above the acceptable limit, this increases the probability of adverse health effects.