Investigation of the influence of high humidity and exposure duration on the measurement results of radon concentration by means of PicoRad system in the CLOR calibration chamber

Although radon dose to lungs comes mainly from shortlived radon daughters, most of its estimations for general population is based on the measurements of radon gas concentration instead of radon progeny and acceptance of a constant equilibrium factor between radon and its short-lived decay products. It is so because integrating passive measurements of radon gas concentration are simpler and cheaper, more convenient and practical from the point of view of people who are the subject of radon exposure. The most common passive methods of radon measurements in large-scale surveys are solid-state nuclear alpha track detectors [1] and activated charcoal collectors [4]. While the track detector method is fully integrating over usually a couple of months or longer, the activated charcoal collectors are used over exposure periods of a few days, up to 6 and the mean radon concentration can be obtained as early as 4 h after the end of exposure [9]. Thus, they are applied when the results are required quickly. The short duration of useful exposure of the charcoal canisters arises from the fact that the charcoal is a collector of radon, but not detector, and the half-life of Rn is only Investigation of the influence of high humidity and exposure duration on the measurement results of radon concentration by means of PicoRad system in the CLOR calibration chamber Olga Stawarz, Maria Karpińska, Kalina Mamont-Ciesla