PIXE ANALYSIS OF HAIR IN ARSENIC POLLUTION, BANGLADESH

Abstract

The groundwater pollution by arsenic in Bangladesh causes a serious problem for millions of people who are exposed to poisoning by this toxic element. In an attempt to evaluate the extent of arsenic poisoning, hair samples of people living in Pabna district were collected. The hair samples were analyzed using Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) through exciting the atoms of a specimen so that their intensities can be converted into elemental concentrations in the specimen. The elements present in the specimen are identified by the corresponding X-ray energies and their concentrations are deduced from the X-ray intensities. The results from hair samples indicate substantially higher level of arsenic than those demarcated as toxic levels, in people from member families both affected and non-affected by poisoning. We correlate it with exceedingly high arsenic concentration in drinking water far above the permissible limit. The analytical results are compared with the results of arsenic and other elemental analysis of 160 Bangladeshi hair samples with that of 250 Japanese samples. The results show markedly higher levels of arsenic, manganese, iron and lead where the latter three elements show a positive relation with arsenic in the case of Bangladeshi as compared to the samples from Japan. On the other hand, selenium concentrations show very low level in the Bangladeshi samples compared to Japanese, displaying an inverse relationship with arsenic. The mechanism of arsenic in relation to other elements in the human body needs further investigation. The preliminary results call for detailed experimental and epidemiological studies to further characterize these aspects.