Determination of Zinc in Wheat and Wheat Bran by Neutron Activation Analysis

The knowledge of concentration of elements in foodstuffs is of significant interest. Wheat is one of the most consumed food stuffs in Iran and zinc is also considered as one of the necessary and vital elements. Since the measurement of some trace elements is not practical by the conventional analytical methods, due to the lower detection limit, the neutron activation analysis (NAA) was applied to determine the zinc in wheat and wheat bran. Food sample of roughly 50mg was irradiated for 24h. After cooling, the interval samples were counted by a gamma spectrometry system. The concentration of zinc in wheat without bran and the wheat bran were 18.444±0.656 and 19.927±0.698 ppm, respectively. The amount of zinc in wheat bran was noticeable so it showed that consuming wheat with bran is more beneficial than the wheat with no bran for the human-beings’ body requirements.