A Study of the effect of sewage water irrigation on the elemental composition of soil and plants using neutron activation analysis

Instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) has allowed performing a complete characterization of the chemical composition of different soil and plant samples. Soil and plants which irrigated by Nile water and by sewage water were irradiated in the second Egyptian reactor (ETRR-2) and measured by gamma spectroscopy system to assess the elemental concentrations in all test samples. The obtained results in soil show that there are high concentrations of some elements more than 500 ppm like Mg, K, Cl, Ca and Na but some other elements have little concentration below 500 ppm like Mn, Al and Fe and trace elements have concentrations less than 1 ppm. The data obtained show Also, that there are high concentrations of some elements in soil irrigated by sewage water rather than soil irrigated by Nile water for some elements such as Ti, Mg, Mn, Na, V, K, Al, Cl, Ca, Cr, Fe, Ce, and Zn, respectively. By comparing our results with others in soil found the concentrations of elements in the present work more than in soil from different countries in both which irrigated by Nile or sewage water.