An Assessment of Radiation Hazard Index of Licensed and Illegal Cigarette

Abstract

The radioactivity of 238U, 232Th and 40K of licensed and illegal cigarette was studied in terms of Radiation Hazard Index. Six different brands of cigarette were collected and analysed by using HPGe detector-based gamma spectroscopy system. The external and internal hazard indexes for both licensed and illegal cigarette were largely above the unity value to be regarded as radiation hazard insignificant. For external hazard index, the value varied from 8.254 to 10.749. Both the highest and the lowest value for external hazard index were recorded from the illegal cigarette samples. The highest value for internal hazard index was found in the licensed cigarette sample X1 with a value of 11.449, while the lowest value was obtained from the illegal cigarette sample Y1 which at 9.014.