Measuring radon exhalation rate by tracing the radon concentration of

ventilation-type accumulation chamber

Yanliang Tan
a, b,
*
, Detao Xiao
b,
**
, Xiaosong Liu
b
, Quan Tang
b
a
Department of Physics and Electronics, Hengyang Normal University, Hengyang, Hunan 421008, China
b
School of Nuclear Science & Technology, University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan 421001, China
h i g h l i g h t s
We present a method for measurements of radon exhalation from the medium surface in open loop.
The real radon concentration of ventilation-type accumulation chamber can be obtained by correction algorithm.
The radon exhalation rate can be obtained by nonlinear or linear least squares tting.
This method can be applied for develop the portable instrument.
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 2 December 2011
Received in revised form
5 July 2013
Accepted 30 July 2013
Keywords:
Radon exhalation rate
Ventilation-type accumulation chamber
Tracing the radon concentration
a b s t r a c t
Radon exhalation rate is crucial in the estimation of radiation risk from various materials. RAD7 only
focus on the count of the
218
Po in sniff mode, and is well suited to measure radon exhalation rates. This
paper presents a fast method for measuring radon exhalation from medium surface with a ventilation-
type accumulation chamber by the RAD7 while making the effects of leakage and back diffusion
negligible. The radon exhalation rate can be obtained from the measured values before radioactive
equilibrium between Radon and progeny occurs. This method is based on the principle for tracing radon
concentration changes by deriving
222
Rn concentrations through
218
Po measurements. Several radon
exhalation rate measurements of medium surface have been performed in the Radon Laboratory of the
University of South China. The radon exhalation rates obtained by verication experiments are within
the accepted values for the reference value.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In the lower atmosphere,
222
Rn originates from the decay of
226
Ra, a member in the decay series of
238
U, which is present in
trace amounts in all soils (Y. Xia et al., 2010). The radon exhaled
from building materials will accumulate in houses, buildings, and
workplaces (Jing Chen et al., 2009; S. Tokonami et al., 2003). The
radon exhalation rate is crucial in the estimation of radiation risk
from various construction materials (Hosoda Masahiro et al.,
2009; Rajesh Kumar, 2007; R. Shweikani and G. Raja, 2008; M.I.
Al-Jarallah et al., 2001), and it can be measured by the accumu-
lation chamber technique (Yanliang Tan and Detao Xiao, 2011a).
Tokonami et al. developed a measurement system with a
ventilation-type accumulation chamber for measuring radon
exhalation rate. A Scintillation cell was used for counting all alpha
particles from radon and its decay products (Masahiro Hosoda
et al., 2011).
RAD7 (Durridge Company) is a highly versatile instrument used
for radon detection that can measure radon concentration in real
time. The manual of RAD7 indicates that it is well suited to measure
radon exhalation rate in sniff mode. Furthermore, the ability to
count only the
218
Po decays in this mode means that the mea-
surements are unaffected by other particles. Tokonami et al. pro-
posed that radon exhalation occurs from an enclosed surface in the
ventilation-type accumulation chamber. The RAD7 will draw air
from the enclosure, through the desiccant and inlet lter, and into
the measurement chamber. The air drawn from the enclosure may
be replaced with air from the surrounding environment, which has
a low radon concentration.
In this paper, we initially present a method for measuring the
radon exhalation rate with a ventilation-type accumulation
chamber by RAD7 while making the effects of leakage and back
diffusion negligible. However, because our method of
* Corresponding author. Department of Physics and Electronics, Hengyang
Normal University, Hengyang, Hunan 421008, China.
** Corresponding author.
E-mail address: hytyl@163.com (Y. Tan).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Radiation Measurements
j ournal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ radmeas
1350-4487/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.radmeas.2013.07.011
Radiation Measurements 58 (2013) 33e36
measurement requires the chamber to reach equilibrium prior
to determining the concentration, this process is time
consuming. Thus, we propose a new method of obtaining the
exhalation rate by the measuring values before the process
reaches equilibrium. This faster method is based on tracing the
radon concentration, yielding a shorter measurement time than
that of usual method. Several radon exhalation rate measure-
ments of medium surface have been performed in the Radon
Laboratory of the University of South China. The radon exhala-
tion rates obtained by verication experiments agree with the
reference value.
2. Theory for measuring the radon exhalation rate with a
ventilation-type accumulation chamber by RAD7
RAD7s internal cell is a dome, with a Canberra PIPS detector in
place, and an internal volume of 723 mL (Dr. Derek Lane-Smith,
President of Durridge Company, provides all the dimensions in
RAD7). The high voltage power circuit charges the inside conductor
to a potential of 2000e2500 V, relative to the detector. Electric eld
propels positively charged particles onto the detector. Fig. 1 shows
the internal structure of the RAD7. The radon exhalation rate
measurement scheme with a ventilation-type accumulation
chamber is illustrated in Fig. 2.
Using an internal pump, RAD7 draws air through the
ventilation-type accumulation chamber, into the internal cell via
the drying tube and inlet lter. A mechanical vacuum gauge mon-
itors the pressure in the chamber. This gauge maintains a value of
zero throughout the measurements.
Generally, external radon concentration on the second oor of
our laboratory is below 20 Bq/m
3
. This value is much smaller than
levels inside the chamber, and can be ignored. Given this, the radon
concentration in the chamber can be determined by the following
differential equation:
dC
V
t
dt

JS LC
V
t
V
l
eff
C
V
t
JS
V

_
L
V
l
eff
_
C
V
t (1)
where C
V
(t) is the radon concentration in the ventilation-type
accumulation chamber; J is the radon exhalation rate; S is the
area of the ventilation-type accumulation chamber bottom; V is the
volume of the ventilation-type accumulation chamber; L is the ow
rate of the pump; and l
eff
is an effective decay constant of radon,
including decay constant, back diffusion coefcient, and the
chamber leakage coefcient.
If L/V >> l
eff
, Eq. (1) can be rewritten as
dC
V
t
dt
z
JS
V

L
V
C
V
t (2)
and can be solved as
C
V
t
JS
L

JS
L
e

L
V
t
C
0
e

L
V
t
z
JS
L

JS
L
e

L
V
t
(3)
C
0
is the initial value of radon concentration in the chamber, and it
equals the surrounding environments radon concentration. It can
be ignored.
When t > 4V/L, e
L=Vt
< 2%, and C
0
is negligible, radon con-
centration in the chamber will be a constant, then Eq. (3) can be
rewritten as:
J
L
S
C
V
t (4)
Thus, the radon exhalation rate can be obtained through simple
calculation. We can nd that only when t > 4V/L the data can be
used to calculate the radon exhalation rate. Moreover, there is
another 30- to 40-min delay for measuring radon concentration
(Yanliang Tan and Detao Xiao, 2011a,b). Therefore, the measure-
ment time is longer than our original estimate.
3. A quicker method for radon exhalation rate measurement
We have obtained the measured value in the chamber when
t <4V/L. Based on Eq. (3), the radon exhalation rate can be obtained
frommeasured value before the equilibriumstate. But RAD7 cannot
trace the change of radon concentration quick enough to measure
instantaneous concentration levels. The reason is that sufcient
time is needed for the
218
Po concentration detected in RAD7s in-
ternal cell to equal the radon concentration in the chamber. Yan-
liang Tan et al. proposed that a zeroth-order approximation can be
used to describe the evolution of the radon concentrations. Thus,
radon concentration in the chamber is a constant in any cycle. The
correction algorithm for tracing the change of radon concentration
can be written as (Yanliang Tan, Detao Xiao, 2011b)
CnT C
n
(5)
C
Po
nT C
n
_
_
_
_
1
L
V1
e
l
PoT
l
Po

L
V1
_
_
_
_
C
Po
n 1Te
l
PoT

C
n1
l
Po
e
l
PoT
l
Po

L
V1
(6)
Fig. 1. Internal structure of RAD7.
Fig. 2. Radon exhalation rate measurement scheme with a ventilation-type accumu-
lation chamber.
Y. Tan et al. / Radiation Measurements 58 (2013) 33e36 34
C
n

C
Po
n 1T
_
1 e
l
PoT
_
l
Po
TC
n
l
Po
C
n1
_
V1
L

e
l
Po
T
l
Po
L
V
1
_
1
L
V
1
e
l
Po
T
l
Po
L
V
1
l
Po
T l
Po
V1
L
(7)
where C
n
and C
n1
are the radon concentrations in the chamber, in
the nth and (n 1)th cycle, both values are constant; C(nT) is the
radon concentration in the internal cell of the RAD7 at the end of
the nth cycle; C
Po
(nT) and C
Po
[(n 1)T] are the
218
Po concentrations
in the internal cell of the RAD7 at the end of the nth and (n 1)th
cycle; C
n
is the reading of the RAD7 in nth cycle; L the ow rate of
the pump; l
Po
is the decay constant of
218
Po; and V
1
is the volume of
the internal cell of the RAD7. Because the volume of the internal cell
is only 0.7 L, and the owrate of the pump is higher than 0.5 L/min,
the radon concentration in the internal cell of the RAD7 at the end
of any cycle will approximate the radon concentrations in the
chamber when the cycle time is longer than 5 min.
From Eqs. (5)e(7), the radon concentration in the chamber in
the nth cycle can be obtained. Because of the zeroth-order
approximation, we can assume that the radon concentration C
n
is
just the radon concentration at the middle of the nth cycle. Thus,
C
V
_
nT
T
2
_
C
n
(8)
From Eq. (3), the radon concentration in the chamber at the
middle of nth cycle is
C
V
_
nT
T
2
_

JS
L

JS
L
e

L
V
nT
T
2

(9)
From Eq. (3), the radon concentration in the ventilation-type
accumulation chamber at the middle of (n 1)th cycle is
C
V
_
n 1T
T
2
_

JS
L

JS
L
e

L
V
n1T
T
2

(10)
Eq. (9) multiplies e
L=VT
and subtracts Eq. (10):
J
_
S
L

S
L
e

L
V
T
_
C
V
_
n 1T
T
2
_
C
V
_
nT
T
2
_
e

L
V
T
(11)
Then,
J
_
C
V
_
n 1T
T
2
_
C
V
_
nT
T
2
_
e

L
V
T
___
S
L

S
L
e

L
V
T
_
(12)
Hence, the radon exhalation rate can be obtained by tting a
linear regression to Eq. (12). The x in this regression is n.
The radon exhalation rate can be obtained through nonlinear
data regression with Eq. (3).
4. Experiment results and discussion
A standard facility simulating radon exhalation from soil or
tailings was constructed in the Radon Laboratory of the University
of South China in 2001 (Yanliang Tan and Detao Xiao, 2011a). The
relevant reference value of the radon exhalation rate is
1.48 Bq m
2
s
1
. To demonstrate this novel measuring method,
several radon exhalation rate measurements from the medium
surface were conducted using the standard facility. An RAD7 with
1.12 of calibration factor is used to performthe radon concentration
measurement inside the chamber. The chambers base measures
430 cm
2
, whereas the volume is 4000 cm
3
. The ow rate of the
pump in the RAD7 is about 520 mL/min. The half-life of
218
Po is
3.1 min, with a decay constant of 0.2236 min
1
.
When conducting the experiment, the RAD7 device was set in
sniff mode on a 10-min cycle and with 5 recycles. The detector was
purged with external air before each measurement. A small drying
tube is used to dry owing air, and it links to both the RAD7 and the
chamber via a smaller tube. The relative humidity of the internal
cell in the RAD7 is less than 10%. Table 1 lists all measured values.
Substituting all the parameters, Eqs. (6) and (7) can be rewritten
as:
C
Po
nT 0:845C
n
0:107C
Po
n 1T 0:048C
n1
(13)
C
n
0:827C
Po
n 1T 2:07C
n
0:243C
n1
(14)
The radon concentrations in the chamber obtained by Eqs. (5),
(13) and (14) are listed in Table 2. This provides the radon con-
centration at the half-way point of the nth cycle.
From Table 2, we nd that the radon concentration in the
chamber decreases after 35 min. That error comes from the mea-
surement error in any cycle. From Eqs. (13) and (14), we can
determine that the measurement error produced in any measure-
ment cycle will be reduced and delivered to the subsequent cycles.
Tables 3 and 4 list the results obtained by Eqs. (3) and (12). The
computer software Origin 7.0 was used to process the experimental
data. The radon exhalation rates are little larger than the reference
value. As well, the radon exhalation rates obtained by the two ex-
periments and two data tting method are slightly different. This is
the result of the statistical uctuation of the nuclear measurement
and different data tting method. The Origin 7.0 report shows the
uncertainty of the radon exhalation rate, which is obtained by data
tting on the data series of one experiment. The Origin 7.0 analysis
does not include uncertainties assigned to other factors; the un-
certainties in the computed exhalation rate quoted by Origin 7.0 are
probably too small.
The accuracy of this method is less than that method which the
closed-loop is used with the same equipment (Yanliang Tan and
Detao Xiao, 2011a). The reason is that the models are different
and the radon concentration in the ventilation-type accumulation
chamber is less than that in accumulation chamber. But this
method is sample.
From Tables 3 and 4, we can also nd that the uncertainties of
radon exhalation rates obtained by tting a linear regression are
Table 1
Measured values of radon concentration (Bq/m
3
).
Cycle number, N Experiment 1
C
n
Experiment 2
C
n
1 1456 1040
2 5622 4738
3 7258 6955
4 7930 7986
5 8030 7403
Table 2
Radon concentrations in the ventilation-type accumulation chamber (Bq/m
3
).
Time, t Experiment 1
C
n
Experiment 2
C
n
5 3014 2153
15 8799 7780
25 6392 6823
35 9351 9188
45 6972 5792
Y. Tan et al. / Radiation Measurements 58 (2013) 33e36 35
bigger than that obtained through nonlinear data regression. The
reason is that the superposition of measurement errors in Eq. (12).
Since the internal pump of the RAD7 drew ambient air into the
chamber in the measurement, if the ow rate is very high and the
air input tube of the ventilation-type chamber is small and long,
there is a pressure difference between the chamber and the
external environment. This fact could lead to an error in the radon
ux. A vacuum gauge is used to monitor the pressure in the
ventilation-type chamber. The air input tube of the chamber is
short and wide, and the ow rate of the internal pump is low. The
reading of the vacuum gauge is always zero in the measurement;
showing that differential pressure is negligible.
For the RAD7 and the ventilation-type accumulation chamber in
these measurements, L/V is about 0.002 s
1
. If the effective decay
constant is muchless thanL/V, Eq. (1) canbe rewrittenas Eq. (2). This
method can be used to measure radon exhalation rate. This method
seems not suitable tomeasurethe radonexhalationratefroma loose
medium surface for the large effective decay constant, especially as
soil. However, we can increase the pump ow rate of the radon
monitor, and increase the diameter of the air input tube to keep the
differential pressure in the chamber and outdoors negligible. Then,
the effective decayconstant is muchless thanL/V. This systemcanbe
used for measuring usual radon uxes such as common soil, but we
must use a tall tube to gather ambient air due to negligible radon
levels at heights above ground level. In this case, the radon con-
centration in the chamber is only several hundred Bq/m
3
.
Because this method can use all measured values, the mea-
surement time is less than that of usual method, which requires at a
time value of least 4V/L prior to measuring data. Even though we
dont think the delay time for the
218
Po concentration registered by
the internal cell detector to equal the radon concentration in the
ventilation-type accumulation chamber, this allows for our exper-
iment to be conducted in a signicantly less amount of time than
usual methods.
5. Conclusion
Though RAD7 is designed to measure radon in sniff mode, it is
well suited to take radon exhalation rate measurements. Radon
exhalation rates can be measured with a ventilation-type accu-
mulation chamber by RAD7 while making the effects of leakage and
back diffusion negligible. Radon exhalation rates can be obtained by
tting the measured values before the equilibrium state using
linear or nonlinear regression. This faster method based on tracing
the radon concentration in the chamber, yields a measurement
time shorter than that of usual method at least 4V/L, even though
we dont think the delay time for the
218
Po concentration registered
by the internal cell detector to equal the radon concentration in the
ventilation-type accumulation chamber. The radon exhalation rate
falls within the accepted reference value, showing that our model is
satisfactory. This method can be applied to develop and improve
instruments for measuring radon exhalation with a ventilation-
type accumulation chamber.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank Dr. Derek Lane-Smith for
providing all the dimensions in RAD7. Project supported by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11075049),
the Excellent Talents Program of Hengyang Normal University of
China and the construct program of the key discipline in Hunan
province. The authors appreciate Mr. Matthew Rohrback for
providing the language editing service.
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Table 3
Radon exhalation rates obtained by nonlinear data tting with Eq. (3).
Experiment number Radon exhalation rate (Bq m
2
s
1
)
1 1.64 0.15
2 1.52 0.16
Table 4
Radon exhalation rates obtained by linear data tting with Eq. (12).
Experiment number Radon exhalation rate (Bq m
2
s
1
)
1 1.66 0.29
2 1.56 0.27
Y. Tan et al. / Radiation Measurements 58 (2013) 33e36 36