In Soil Science, Agriculture, and Building Materials

Many agricultural processes such as control of fertilizers and pesticides are influenced by surface and sub-surface movement, percolation and infiltration of water. Stable activateable tracers, such as bromide, analyzed by NAA, have allowed the soil scientist to quantify the distribution of agricultural chemicals under a wide variety of environmental and land use influences. In one of the study on phosphate fertilizers in Egypt using NAA, Abdel-Haleem et al. (2001) have reported the presence of heavy metals Fe, Zn, Co, Cr, and Sc as well as rare earth elements La, Ce, Hf, Eu, Yb and Sm in the samples containing the phosphate fertilizer components (e.g., rock phosphate, limestone, and sulfur) from which fertilizer is produced as final output product. The measurement of Ca/Si concentration ratio in the concrete samples has been carried out using NAA with 5Ci Am-Be neutron source (Khelifi et al. 1999). 

9 For Analysis of Food Items and Ayurvedic Medicinal Materials 

The concentrations of Br, Ca, Cl, Co, Cu, K, Mg, Mn, Na, and V in cereals, oils, sweeteners, and vegetables sold in Canada were determined with absolute instrumental NAA. These items also indicated the presence of 1, Rb, S, and Ti (Soliman and Zikovsky 1999). 

Leafy samples often used as medicine in the Indian Ayurvedic system and vegetables were analyzed by Naidu et al. (1999) for 20 elements (As, Ba, Br, Ca, Ce, Cr, Cs, Co, Eu, Fe, K, La, Na, Rb, Sb, Sc, Sm, Sr, Th, Zn) using this technique. Multielement analysis using NAA on cereals and pulses have also been carried out by Balaji et al. (2000). 

A study on spinach and cabbage by NAA method was found to be reliable as compared to atomic emission spectrometry for measurement of Ce, Co, Mn, Na, Rb, Th, and V (Andrasi et al. 1998). 

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