Concentration of Cs in plants and water resulting from radioactive pollution

Abstract The consumption of plants cultivated in soils contaminated by radioactive cesium can lead to internal exposure and health problems in humans. It is therefore very important to clarify the uptake mechanism of radioactive cesium from contaminated soils. In this study, the variation of cesium concentrations in plants was examined using mediums that contained no potassium and different cesium concentrations of 50, 100, 250 and 500 ppm. Raphanus sativus was selected as a typical edible vegetable and hydroponically cultivated. Cesium concentrations in leaves were analyzed with a submilli-PIXE camera. The concentration of cesium in plants was observed to increase as concentrations in the medium increased. As the concentration of cesium in the medium increased, the transfer coefficient decreased. However, there was little difference between the 250 and 500 ppm treatments. In future work, PIXE analysis will be performed on different mediums and the relationship with other materials will be investigated.