Measurement of radon exhalation rate from building materials: The case of Mashhad-Khorasan Region Iran

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Physics, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The release of Radon gas from soil, water and building materials in closed environments exposes residents to this radioactive gas. Although humans use building materials as a protective barrier against the natural radiation of the open space, the radionuclide compounds released from some building materials cause an increase in indoor radon concentration. Therefore, measuring the amount of Radon exhalation from building materials is very important for public health.  Although Radon is the most important source of natural radiation and its high concentration level in the closed environments has a significant health risk, the main daughter nuclei of radon, 214Po and 218Po isotopes, have also a high ability to cause lung cancer in humans. Therefore, public attention and concern about the release of radon from building materials used in the indoor environments have increased recently and many efforts have been done to evaluate and control indoor radon concentrations. In this paper, the surface diffusion coefficient of radon from samples of widely used building materials was measured and calculated using the active method in the closed chamber and Sarad-RTM1689 radon meter. The results obtained for the exhalation rate of radon gas for these samples vary from the range of undetectable insignificant values up to 1.95 Bqm-2h-1. The highest surface exhalation rate was observed in granite samples, while the clay brick sample showed a rate lower than the detection threshold (0.05 Bq m-2h-1). From our results it can be suggested to choose more suitable building materials for a safer indoor environment.

Keywords

References

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