Development of a couple of methods for measuring radon exhalation from building materials commonly used in the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Radon is considered to be the main contributor to the worldwide population exposure to natural sources of radiation and so a lot of efforts have been made in most countries to assess indoor radon concentrations. Radon exhales from the earth's surface and is part of the radioactive decay series of uranium, which is also present in building materials. In this work, measurements of radon exhalation rates in building materials commonly used in the Iberian Peninsula have been carried out by using two different methods: active and passive techniques. In the first technique, the radon exhalation rate was measured following the radon activity growth as a function of time, by using a continuous radon monitor. The second technique is based on integrated measurements by using solid-state nuclear track detectors and a Spark Counter reading equipment. The results obtained by both measuring methods were found to be consistent.

Basement Car Parks A Domicile of Radon Pollution Validated By Discomfort Index

“…This was in line with the earlier findings [9,18,23,26]. Earlier [4,7,9,11] researchers hypothesized the influence of radon concentrations from the outdoor environment. A diminutive vertical mixing of air especially in the early morning and late evening during winter caused the low diffusion rate of radon into the atmosphere and created high radon concentrations near the ground.…”

“…Radon enters the basement floors through cracks in walls and other openings from rock and soil and observed everywhere [2,3,4]. Unlike their concentrations found outdoor, radon gets trapped in the indoor environment and may accumulate over time that causes respiratory illness to humans [5,6].…”

Exhalation Rate Study of Thoron in Some Building Materials of the Iberian Peninsula

“…Building materials were crushed and dried in an oven, at 105 °C for 48 h. After that, they were grounded, sieved and the fraction less than 2 mm particle size was collected for analyses. The dried samples were put in cylindrical plastic boxes of 190 cm 3 or in 1000 cm 3 Marinelli beakers. In both cases, the containers were hermetically sealed for at least 28 days before proceeding to the measurement.…”

“…The exhalation can be related to the mass of the samples (massic radon exhalation, in Bq•kg −1 •s −1 ). A similar method used for the Rn-222 in a previous study was used [3]. The soil samples were put into the airtight accumulation chamber coupled to a continuous radon/thoron monitor RTM1688-2 of SARAD (see Figure 1).…”

“…The equipment has an internal pump working at a flow rate of 0.30 L•min −1 . The thoron concentration inside the container was measured for a period of 10 days at intervals of 2 h. The detection limit is 5 Bq•m −3 for measurement cycles of 2 h. The calculation of thoron exhalation was adopted from the calculation method of radon exhalation [3]. The thoron exhalation was calculated according to the following equation:…”