The effective radium content and radon oncentrations in coffee samples

Background: many people in iraq and indeed the world choose to drinkcoffee on a daily basis; accordingly, we planned to find the radium anduranium concentrations in addition to the radon emission rate to determineif coffee shows the levels of radioactivity that may affect people’s lives.material and methods: a nuclear track detector (cr-39) was used to studythe natural radioactivity of ten samples of coffee collected from local iraqimarkets. results: the effective radium content varied from 0.13 to 0.66 bq/kgwith a mean 0.32 bq/kg. the mass exhalation rates of radon vary from 0.024– 0.121/kg .h, with a mean 0.059 bq/kg .h, while the surface exhalation ratesof radon vary from 0.47 – 2.39/ m 2.h, with a mean 1.16 bq/m2. h. uraniumcontent varied from 0.10 to 0.54 ppm with a mean value of 0.26 ppm.conclusion: insofar as health effects are concerned, the results have shownthat all the samples were entirely safe.