Radiation Measurements 34 (2001) 467469

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Exhalation rate study of radon= thoron in some building materials

N. Sharma, H.S. Virk
Department of Physics, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar-143005, India

Abstract Indoor radon= thoron have been recognised as one of the health hazards for mankind. Common building materials used for construction of houses, which are considered as major sources of these gases in indoor environment, have been studied for exhalation rate of radon= thoron. Can technique using plastic track detector LR-115 type-II has been used for measurement. Exhalation rates for radon and thoron have been found to be varying from a minimum value of 0.024 and 29:4 Bq m2 h1 for cement plastered brick to a maximum value of 0.16 and 692:2 Bq m2 h1 for unred brick, respectively. Exhalation rate for thoron has been found to be several times higher than that for radon. Measured exhalation rates for thoron indicate signicant presence of thoron in indoor environment which is also supported by indoor measurements of thoron and its progeny. c 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Radon; Thoron; Exhalation; Alpha-tracks

1. Introduction The radioactive elements uranium and thorium are present in earths crust in varying amounts at almost all the places on earth. These elements are the parent elements of two well known radioactive decay series, i.e., uranium and thorium series. In both these series there is one element that is a gas, i.e., 222 radon and 220 thoron. Both these gases are able to escape from the soil and enter the atmosphere. The two processes responsible for their escape from the soil are: convective ow and di usion. Since the soils have generally about 103 104 times gas concentrations than in the atmosphere, there is always a concentration gradient present which is maintained by the continuous decay of radioactive elements. Commonly used earth-based building materials, like bricks, sand, cement, etc., also contain uranium and thorium in varying amounts. The radioactive gases produced in these materials due to decay of Ra226 and Ra224 are also transported to indoor air through di usion and convective

ow. However, only a fraction of the radon= thoron generated in a material is able to escape to the atmosphere. The amount of activity released per unit surface area per unit time from a material is termed as exhalation rate. It depends on the radioactive content of the material, emanation factor, di usion coe cient of these gases in that material and porosity and density of the material. The sources of indoor radon= thoron are soil adjacent to house, earth-based building materials, domestic water, outdoor air and natural gas. However, the soil and building materials are considered as mainly responsible for indoor concentration as other sources generally contribute only a fraction of total indoor activity. There are many factors that a ect the exhalation rate from a surface, e.g., atmospheric pressure, rainfall, humidity and temperature. A number of studies of exhalation rates of radon= thoron from soil and building materials are available (Wilkening et al., 1972; Folkerts, 1983; Singh and Prasad, 1997). 2. Experimental technique

Corresponding author. Tel.= fax: +91-183-258237. E-mail address: virkhs@yahoo.com (H.S. Virk).

In the present work, can technique used by Abu-Jarad et al. (1980) for measurement of radon exhalation rate has

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N. Sharma, H.S. Virk / Radiation Measurements 34 (2001) 467469 Table 1 Radon= thoron exhalation rates in some building materials Material Unred brick Fired brick Slate Cemented brick Marble Exhalation rate (Bq m2 h1 ) Radon 0:160 0:010 0:042 0:003 0:038 0:009 0:024 0:005 0:026 0:002 Thoron 692:2 76:8 102:5 26:5 56:8 19:8 29:4 11:1 33:6 4:8

been used. It is established as a very simple and reliable technique for exhalation rate measurements and has been used by many workers (Karamdoost et al., 1988; Tufail et al., 1991; Rawat et al., 1991; Khan et al., 1992). In this technique, a calibrated plastic can of known dimensions is xed to the surface of the material which is to be studied for exhalation rate. The inner upper surface of the can carries the detector with sensitive surface facing the material surface. Such an assembly is left for a period of time. After the xed time, the detector is taken out, etched (2:5 N NaOH at 60 C for 80 min) and counted for alpha tracks under standard conditions. Then using the following equation (Durrani and Ilic, 1997), exhalation rate is calculated CV =A Ex = ; (1) T + (e T 1)= where Ex is exhalation rate, C is integrated exposure measured by the detector, , decay constant, T , the exposure time, V the volume of the can and A is the surface area covered by the can. In the present work, we have extended this technique to measure exhalation rate for thoron also as the two gases differ only in decay constant as far as exhalation is concerned. We have used calibrated plastic cups used in the national indoor radon= thoron survey (Virk et al., 2000). The dimensions of the cup are: length 4:5 cm and radius 3:1 cm. Two cups were xed to surface of each material studied. The mouth of one cup was covered by glass bre lter paper while that of other with a latex membrane of thickness of 15 m. The detector lm used is LR-115 type II plastic of 2:5 cm 2:5 cm size. The rst cup records the alpha tracks due to both radon and thoron while the second cup records the alpha tracks due to radon only. Three samples of each material were studied. The detectors were exposed in this geometry for a period of 2 months. Then from the track densities obtained in the two cups, integrated exposures due to radon and thoron can be calculated separately. Hence the exhalation rates for the two gases are calculated using Eq. 1.

and thoron, respectively. Cemented bricks recorded the lowest values of exhalation rates for both radon and thoron with values 0.024 and 29:4 Bq m2 h1 . Slate, the typical building material used for making roofs in rural areas of Himachal Pardesh, India recorded values of 0.038 and 56:8 Bq m2 h1 , respectively for the two gases. Marble, the other commonly used building material, recorded the values of 0.026 and 33:6 Bq m2 h1 , respectively for radon and thoron. The values of exhalation rates reported in Table 1 correspond well with the values reported by other workers (Rawat et al., 1991; Porestendorfer, 1994). Porestendorfer (1994) has summarised the works of various authors and reported the typical range of exhalation rates of radon and thoron for building materials of di erent countries. The radon exhalation rates are reported to be lying in the range of 0.36 10:8 Bq m2 h1 and that for thoron, 36.0 720:0 Bq m2 h1 . The values reported in the present work conform to these ranges.

References
Abu-Jarad, F., Fremlin, J.H., Bull, R., 1980. A study of radon emitted from building materials using plastic alpha track detectors. Phys. Med. Biol. 25 (4), 683694. Durrani, S.A., Ilic, R. (Eds.), 1997. Radon Measurements by Etched Track Detectors: Applications to Radiation Protection, Earth Sciences and the Environment. World Scientic, Singapore. Folkerts, K.H., 1983. Theoretische und experimentelle Untersuchungen uber Di usion und Exhalation der naturlich radioktiven Edelgase 222 Rn und 220 Rn aus Bausto en und deren praktische Bedeutung fur die Strahlenexposition in Wohnraumen. Dissertation Math.-Nat. Fakultat der Universitat des Saarlandes, Saarbrucken. Karamdoost, N.A., Durrani, S.A., Fremlin, J.H., 1988. An investigation of radon exhalation from y ash produced in the combustion of coal. Nucl. Tracks Radiat. Meas. 15 (1 4), 647650. Khan, A.J., Prasad, R., Tyagi, R.K., 1992. Measurement of radon exhalation rate from some building materials. Nucl. Tracks Radiat. Meas. 20, 609. Porestendorfer, J., 1994. Properties and behaviour of radon and thoron and their decay products in the air. J. Aerosol Sci. 25 (2), 219263.

3. Results and discussions The exhalation rate data for radon and thoron is summarised in Table 1. The building materials chosen for the study were unred brick, red brick, slate, cemented brick and marble. The bricks are made from mud clay locally available, containing traces of uranium and thorium. They are red in clay furnaces using coal. Slate is available from local mines but marble is brought from Rajasthan state of India. Trade names of building materials used are not available. Three samples of each type of material were studied and average exhalation rates were determined. Exhalation rate for unred brick made from clay-mud has been found to be 0.16 and 692:2 Bq m2 h1 for radon and thoron, respectively. Exhalation rate for red brick has been found to be 0.042 and 102:5 Bq m2 h1 for radon

N. Sharma, H.S. Virk / Radiation Measurements 34 (2001) 467469 Rawat, A., Jojo, P.J., Khan, A.K., Tayagi, R.K., Prasad, Rajendera., 1991. Radon exhalation rate in building materials. Nucl. Tracks Radiat. Meas. 19 (1 4), 391394. Singh, A.K., Prasad, R., 1997. Radon exhalation from solids. Proceedings of the 3rd ICRGG (Ed. by H.S. Virk) held at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, 10 14 December, 1995, 258261. Tufail, M., Mirza, S.M., Chughtai, M.K., Ahmad, N., Khan, H.A., 1991. Preliminary measurements of exhalation rates and

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di usion coe cients for radon in cements. Nucl. Tracks Radiat. Meas. 19 (1 4), 427428. Virk, H.S., Navjeet, Sharma, 2000. Indoor radon= thoron survey report from Himachal Pradesh, India. App. Radiat. Isot. 52, 137141. Wilkening, M.H., Clements, W.E., Stanley, D., 1972. 222 Radon ux measurements in widely separated regions. In: Adams, J.A.S., Lowder, W.M., Gesell, T.F. (Eds.), The Natural Radiation Environment II. US Department of Energy, Washington DC.