A study of the mechanism of formation of radon daughter aerosols

Abstract

The formation of radon daughter aerosols in air is found to be markedly influenced by the presence of charges and vapours. Experiments have been carried out with natural radon in the air to show that radon daughter products behave as single ions of high mobility in filtered dry air whereas they are attached to cluster aerosols formed in the presence of certain charges and vapours. In these experiments the cluster aerosols have been formed with ethanol vapour in the presence of small negative ions. Knowledge of this mechanism of attachment of radon daughters to cluster aerosols has also been used for the estimation of airborne radon. The radioactivity of these aerosols is studied by filtration through membrane filters. The degree of equilibrium between radon and its daughters in atmospheric air has been studied on the basis of this mechanism. The mechanism is of fundamental importance in understanding the nature of radon daughter products in the air under different environmental conditions. , Tellua XVIII (1966), 2

Radiological Hazard Related with Natural Radioactivity in Natural Gas Transportation—A Case Study from Poland

“…In atmospheric air, short-lived radon decay products behave like ions with high mobility, and easily adsorb on various types of aerosols [26,27]. In the case of gas transport by gas pipeline, similar behavior can be noted, which consequently leads to the accumulation of 210 Pb on aerosols and, finally, black powder.…”

Investigations on radioactive equilibrium in the lower atmosphere between radon and its short-lived decay products

“…The method of determination of equilibrium daughter product activity waa baaed on an earlier study which showed that when highly filtered and dried air mixed with submicron aerosol was allowed to stay for 3 hours in a reservoir, the radon in the air decayed and attained equilibrium with its short-lived daughter products which attached to the aerosol. The details of the method have been described in an earlier paper (Vohra, Subba Ramu & Mohan Rao, 1966). The samples were filled in the reservoir for periods of 30 minutes, along with the aerosol and after the stagnation time of 3 hours, the radon daughters attached to aerosols were collected on a millipore filter paper and their activity measured using an alpha scintillation counter.…”