Assessment of radionuclides and heavy metal in variation of bottled drinking and mineral water / Amirul Haffizhat Jabal

Bottled drinking and mineral water originally comes from underground water
sources and treated pipe water source. The contamination of radionuc1ides and
heavy metals may happen before the water were being distributed as they can
diffuse into the water sources and then being ingested by the consumers. Ten
bottled drinking and mineral water of different brands were used in this study.
Radionuclides that were assessed in this study were 238U, 232Th and 4oK, while
heavy metals assessed were Cd, Pb, Cu, As, Hg, Fe, Mn, Zn and Ni. Radiological
risks and heavy metals risk assessment were conducted to calculate and determine
the ingestion risks for the water samples to be consumed in long time period.
Presence of these elements were traced and detected using EDXRF and ICP-OES.
Radionuclides were detected from EDXRF and heavy metals were traced from
ICP-OES. From the results, 238U and 232Th were absent from all ten water samples
and 40K present in all samples. Radiological risks for radionuclides, annual
effective dose rate and external hazard index were determined: showing all values
of AED for all samples below standard world limit and values for hazard index
does not exceed the unity value of 1. Heavy metals traced from ICP-OES revealed
Cd was the only element present in all water sample, Ni and Pb traced in some
water samples and the remaining heavy metals totally absent in all water samples.
By calculating the heavy metal risk assessment, the value of chronic daily intake
does not exceed the standard set by the world health organization. Hazard quotient
for all elements traced in the water samples also does not exceed the value of
unity of 1.