Determination of some useful radiation interaction parameters for waste foods

Abstract

The mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ) of food waste samples (pomegranate peel, acorn cap, lemon peel, mandarin peel, pumpkin peel, grape peel, orange peel, pineapple peel, acorn peel and grape stalk) have been measured employing a Si(Li) detector at 13.92, 17.75, 20.78, 26.34 and 59.54 keV. Also, the theoretical values of the mass attenuation coefficients have been evaluated utilizing mixture rule from WinXCOM program. The results showed that the lemon peel has the highest values of μ/ρ among the selected samples. From the obtained mass attenuation coefficients, we determined some absorption parameters such as effective atomic number (Zeff), electron density (NE) and molar extinction coefficient (ε). It was found that the Zeff values of all food wastes lie within the range of 4.034–7.595, whereas the NE of the studied food wastes was found to be in the range of 0.301–1.720 × 1025 (electrons/g) for present energy region.