The study of trace elements in milk by nuclear analytical techniques

This work is part of a project with the IAEA, in a coordinated programme on ''Trace Elements in Human Nutrition and Bio-Environmental Systems'' to evaluate their nutritional requirements, interrelations and the role of Trace Elements in health, metabolism etc. Cow's milk being regarded as one of the most important and nutritious foodstuffs consumed by people. Hence as a first step, an elemental analysis for milk was carried out for this purpose so a few samples of pasteurized milk and local samples were investigated for essential and toxic trace elements. The secondary aim of this project was the assessment of various analytical techniques involved. However, in the present work, the methods involved were AAS, PIXE and NAA. The latter method applied, both instrumentally and radiochemically. Although the results pertaining to the various methods employed are not in good agreement, there is however, some justification to clarify this internal inconsistency. The precision for NAA and AAS allows greater degree of acceptance respectively. Although PIXE is a very fast and rather a routine but the technique of trace element analysis needs certain adaptations and developments