• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.37-51
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• 1993

A standard radon chamber and a radon generator adjusted by ventilation system which had used in this research were assumed to calculate theoretically the concentration of radon progeny using Jacobi model theory. On the one hand, the filter sampled from the radon standard chamber and the radon generator was measured and analysed by the alpha spectrometry method. It is clear that measured result shows a good agreement with theoretical result. Therefore, it is observed that this research can made a great contribution to more accurate internal dose assessment by alpha emission of radon progeny in indoor radon environment, and fast individual measurement and determination of concentration for radon progeny.

• Journal of the Korea Furniture Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.13-17
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• 2011

Recently, interest in indoor air quality is increasing. Especially, radon radioactivity among the indoor air is a well-known risk factor for lung cancer because of ionizing radiation in the form of ${\alpha}$-particles. This study was carried out to investigate effect of black charcoal and activated carbon for reduction of radon radiation that emitted from building materials. Black charcoal and activated carbon were used as a barrier which was against the infiltration of radon. The source of radon was gypsum board. Two types of charcoal barrier were powder- and board-type with 5 mm, 10 mm thickness respectively. The method for this determination is evaluated radon concentration in chamber. The measurements were performed with radon detector, SARAD3120. Results of this study are as following: Black charcoal and activated carbon confirmed the highly efficient barrier. Radon concentration was reduced from 72% to 85% as compared the control chamber. Radon reduction capability, however, was no difference as barrier's types. Results obtained in ventilation condition, radon concentration shows 5.93 pCi/L on average in the closed condition and shows 2.69 pCi/L in the opened condition.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.49 no.2
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• pp.122-133
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• 2021

The radon gas from nature mainly considers a cause of radon problems, and it is closely affect human life cycle. Korean yellow residual soil, Hwangtoh, widely used as a building material, is considered to be one of major sources of indoor radon. However, there have, as yet, been no studies about radon from Hwangtoh in mass market brands. Here, we investigated the indoor radon concentrations and exhalation rates in four Hwangtohs from different brand names and regional features. The Closed Chamber Method (CCM) conducted by a Continuous Radon Monitor (CRM) has been used for the rates of radon exhalation. Based on equations of previous references, the indoor radon concentrations were deducted. As a result, the radon surface exhalation rates resulted in the 1.4208 to 3.0293 Bq·㎡·h-1 range. Significant differences were found among Hwangtohs according to production regions. Materials with higher radon concentration required a longer time to reach a quasi-steady state in a given environment, in other words, the number of half-life cycles increased from a set starting point. The experimentally identified Hwangtohs demonstrated its safety for construction purposes. There exists, so far, a possibility to exert influence radon emanation due to unidentified factors. Therefore, it is necessary to corroborate with more research by increasing the number of Hwangtohs, considering the other references reported high radon exhalation rates. In addition, it is highly recommended that the radon exhalation rates should be measured for all building materials for preventing human health before the material usage.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.395-400
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• 2005

An environmental radon monitoring system, comprising a radon-cup, an etching system, and a track counting system, was constructed. The radon cup is a cylindrical chamber with a radius of 2.2 cm and a height of 3.2 cm in combination with a CR-39 detector. Carbon is impregnated in the bodies of the detector chamber to avoid problem of an electrostatic charge. The optimized etching condition for the CR-39 exposed to a radon environment turned out to be a 6 N NaOH solution at 70^{\circ}$ over a 7hour period. The bulk etch rate under the optimized condition was $1.14{\pm}0.03\;{\mu}m\;h^{-1}$. The diameter of the tracks caused by radon and its progeny were found to be in the range of $10\~25\;{\mu}m$ under the optimized condition. The track images were observed with a track counting system, which consisted of an optical microscope, a color charged couple device (CCD) camera, and an image processor. The calibration factor of this system is obtained to be $0.105{\pm}0.006$ tracks $cm^2$ per Bq $m^{-3}$ d.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4644-4651
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• 2022

Due to its short half-life, thoron gas has been assumed to have negligible health hazards on humans compared to radon. But, one of the decay products with a long half-life can make it to be transported to a long distance and to cause a severe internal dose through respiration. Since most commercial radon detectors can not discriminate thoron signals from radon signals, it is very common to overestimate radon doses which in turn result in biased estimation of lung cancer risk in epidemiological studies. Though some methods had been suggested to measure thoron and radon separately, they could not be used for real-time measurement because of CR-39 or LR-115. In this study, an effective method was suggested to measure radon and thoron separately from the free air. It was observed that the activity of thoron decreases exponentially due to delay time caused by a long pipe between two chambers. Therefore from two ion chambers apart in time, it was demonstrated that thoron and radon could be measured separately and simultaneously. We also developed a collimated alpha source and with this source and an SBD, we could convert the ion chamber reading to count rate in cps.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.735-747
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• 2018

Radon radiation exposures in home have been posed as a potential cancer hazard. This research aims to present the basic data of the indoor radon concentration level by examining the radon exhalation rates of wood species. Radon exhalation rates from five commonly used wood species in Korean wood building construction were measured with Continuous Radon Monitor (CRM), Model 1028 (Sun Nuclear Co., USA) using the Closed Chamber Method (CCM). The mass exhalation rate was observed to vary from $0.00089Bq{\cdot}kg^{-1}{\cdot}h^{-1}$ to $0.00181Bq{\cdot}kg^{-1}{\cdot}h^{-1}$, whereas the surface exhalation rate was observed to be $0.00677-0.01517Bq{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}h^{-1}$. The radon exhalation rate of Quercus accutissima Carruth (white oak) which has the highest density showed the highest figure among the five wood species, on the other hand, the rest of four species showed similar results which were similar to the radon exhalation rates of wood in the U.S.A. and Canada. The average of the concentration measured by the CCM represented well up to the second half-life period (7.7 days). Because result of these small quantities seems to indicate that radon exhalation from the tested wood species has almost negligible impact, the main culprit of the high indoor radon concentration is clearly derived from the background of surrounding wood house. Therefore, as a safety precaution, infrastructures made of wood materials should be designed with the consideration of influx of radon and built accordingly. Furthermore, it is highly desirable that wood will be needed to use for furniture and interior finishing material in indoor environment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1538-1543
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• 2024

The importance of determining the radon exhalation rate from water surface is emphasized by the increased use of radon and its daughter products as tracers in large-scale circulation studies of the atmosphere. There were many methods to measure radon exhalation from water surface. With the development of radon exhalation rate measurement methods and instruments on the surface of the soil, the rock and building materials, so the radon exhalation rate from water surface can be more accurately measured by applying these improved methods and instruments. In this paper, a cuboid accumulation chamber surrounded by foam boards and a RAD7 were used to measure the radon exhalation rate on the water surface at three different positions by Yixin lake. Each measurement was performed 2 h. The radon exhalation rate from the water surface was about 6 × 10^-3 Bq m^-2s^-1. The thoron exhalation rate from the water surface also can be estimated, it is about 0.16 Bq m^-2s^-1. These results hint that the radon transmission from the lake bottom soil to water and then into the atmosphere.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.24 no.9
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• pp.1131-1138
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• 2015

Radon exhalation rates have been determined for samples of concrete, gypsum board, marble, and tile among building materials that are used in domestic construction environment. Radon emanation was measured using the closed chamber method based on CR-39 nuclear track detectors. The radon concentrations in apartments of 100 households in Seoul, Busan and Gyeonggi Provinces were measured to verify the prediction model of indoor radon concentration. The results obtained by the four samples showed the largest radon exhalation rate of $0.34314Bq/m^2{\cdot}h$ for sample concrete. The radon concentration contribution to indoor radon in the house due to exhalation from the concrete was $31.006{\pm}7.529Bq/m^3$. The difference between the prediction concentration and actual measured concentration was believed to be due to the uncertainty resulting from the model implementation.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 2020

The aim of this study was to estimate the microbial metabolic activity of indigenous soil microbes under the radon exposure with different intensity and times in the secured laboratory radon chamber. For this purpose, the soil microbes were collected from radon-contaminated site located in the G county, Korea. Thereafter, their metabolic activity was determined after the radon exposure of varying radon concentrations of 185, 1,400 and 14,000 Bq/㎥. The average depth variable concentrations of soil radon in the radon-contaminated site were 707, 860 and 1,185 Bq/㎥ from 0, 15, and 30 cm in deep, respectively. Simultaneously, the soil microbial culture was mainly composed of Bacillus sp., Brevibacillus sp., Lysinibacillus sp., and Paenibacillus sp. From the radon exposure test, higher or lower radiation intensities compared to the threshold level attributed the metabolic activity of mixed microbial consortium to be reduced, whereas the moderate radiation intensity (i.e. threshold level) induced it to the pinnacle point. It was decided that radon radiation could instigate the microbial metabolic activity depending on the radon levels while they were exposed, which could consequently address that the certain extent of threshold concentration present in the ecosystem relevant to microbial diversity and population density to be more proliferated.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.25-35
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• 1993

To develop a technique of theoretical alpha track density calculation for comparison with measured track density, an electrostatic ion spectrometer was specially designed and fabricated. The mobility spectrum of first radon daughter(Po-218) in the range of $0.07{\sim}5.0cm^2/V\;s$ from the radon chamber was measured using-the electrostatic ion spectrometer. Measurement was taken in a radon chamber operated using dry particle free air passed through silica gel, activated charcoal and molecular sieve filters. The mobility of a new-born Po-218 ion measured by the electrostatic ion spectrometer was determined to be $1.92cm^2/V\;s$. A comparison of the theoretical and measured alpha track densities was completed and uncertainties concerning the shape of the spectrum were analyzed. It was found that the discrepancies in track densities are primarily Que to the neglect of wall loss of ions in the theoretical track density calculation.