Long-term determination of airborne radon progeny concentrations using LR 115 detectors and the effects of thoron.

The 'proxy equilibrium factor' (F(p)) method has been developed for long-term determination of airborne radon progeny concentrations using LR 115 solid-state nuclear track detectors. In this paper, the effects of (220)Rn on the F(p) method have been studied. The correction to the track density was related to a parameter α which was the ratio of the sum of activity concentrations of alpha-particle emitting radionuclides in the (220)Rn decay chain to the activity concentration of (220)Rn alone. Under commonly encountered circumstances, α could not be smaller than 2. An attempt was made to verify this using the exposure chamber at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), Chiba, Japan. A most interesting observation of α < 2 for very high (220)Rn concentrations and very low equilibrium factors for (220)Rn in the exposure chambers was made. A possible explanation was the substantial deposition of (216)Po under the extreme conditions inside the exposure chambers.