Determination and human health risk assessment of TFWT, OBT and carbon-14 in seafood around Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant

This work aims to evaluate the effects of the operation of Qinshan nuclear Power Plant (QNPP) on tritium (H-3) and carbon-14 (C-14) levels in seafood and assess the health risks caused by seafood consumption. Five kinds of seafood, including marine fish, prawn, razor clam, crabs, and seaweed, were collected from QNPP and the sea around Hangzhou Bay. The activity concentrations of tissue free water tritium (TFWT), organically bound tritium (OBT) and C-14 were determined, respectively, and the annual intake and annual effective dose (AED) were calculated. The results showed that the TFWT, OBT, and C-14 activity concentrations of the seafood in the surrounding area of QNPP ranged from 2.00 to 74.75 Bq/L, <1.04 to 19.68 Bq/L and 0.09 to 0.17 Bq/gC, respectively. The TFWT, OBT, and C-14 activity concentrations of the seafood in Hangzhou Bay ranged from 1.36 to 10.55 Bq/L, 1.08 to 6.78 Bq/L and 0.07 to 0.13 Bq/gC, respectively. The differences were not statistically significant. The total AED from H-3 and C-14 due to the seafood consumption for the residents in the surrounding of QNPP and Hangzhou Bay were 1.96 x 10(-4) and 1.61 x 10(-4) mSv/year, respectively. The results showed that the operation of QNPP had no obvious effect on H-3 and C-14 accumulation in seafood, and the dose burden of population was low.