210Po AND 210Pb ACTIVITY IN CHINESE CIGARETTES

• DOI: 10.1097/01.hp.0000342164.08042.9c
• Publication Date: 2009-05-21T18:19:56Z
• Authors: Stephen Schayer; Barbara Nowak; Yanling Wang; Qingshan Qu; Beverly Cohen
• Keywords: Polonium; Tobacco smoke

The radon decay products lead-210 ((210)Pb) and polonium-210 ((210)Po) are known components of tobacco. China is the world's largest producer consumer cigarettes, yet no comprehensive published reports (210)Pb (210)Po activity concentrations in Chinese cigarettes available. Twelve brands that were commonly smoked within a group 184 smokers selected for analysis. For each brand, tobacco from two was isolated, dried, weighed, spiked with (209)Po tracer yield, digested concentrated HNO3, followed by HCl. polonium solution spontaneously deposited onto nickel disc. then counted using alpha spectroscopy. mean (range) all 23 (18-29) mBq cig(-1). state radioactive equilibrium between cigarette verified three cigarettes. Cigarettes on machine order to estimate fraction inhaled. An average 8% 13% transferred mainstream smoke. It thus estimated person smoking 20 these per day would inhale 37 (29-46) d(-1) 60 (47-75) (210)Po. Cigarette may therefore be large source person's daily intake