Radiochemical determination of 137Cs in foods

A determination of radionuclides in food samples is important in commodities in order to attend to regulatory requirements for international trade. As a long-lived radioisotope of cesium, 137Cs is produced as a result of human nuclear activities and than its contamination level evaluation among others radionuclides in foods is necessary. A methodology for the determination of 137Cs in foods, pork and fish, is described. The procedures covered homogenization and freeze-drying of the samples. The 137Cs was measured by gamma spectrometry using Canberra 50% HPGe detector. The counting was carried out with Monte Carlo software for detection conditions optimization including geometry and chemical data information. A certified sample, SRM IAEA-375, was analyzed in order to evaluate the reliability of the method, and the results showed good agreement between the measured and certified values. (author)