Measurement of Rn-222 in water by absorption in polycarbonates and liquid scintillation counting

This work presents a new technique for measurement of activity concentrations of Rn-222 in water which is based on liquid scintillation counting (LSC) of polycarbonates exposed in the water. The polycarbonate material has high absorption ability to radon and when exposed in a radon-containing environment (air or water), it absorbs and concentrates radon in its volume. This property of the polycarbonate material is used for sampling Rn-222 from the water. The main new element in this work is that it proposes the LSC technique for measurement of the radiation, emitted from the polycarbonate material. This radiation is due to the decay of the absorbed Rn-222 and its progeny. Experimental results of LSC of polycarbonate granules and thin foils exposed in water with different activity concentrations of Rn-222 are presented. In all cases a very good linear correlation between the LS counting rate and the activity concentration of the water is found. The LSC of polycarbonates shows similar or even higher sensitivity in comparison to that of LSC of water. The estimated radon-in-water minimal detectable activity concentrations of the proposed method are similar or lower than those of the LSC and lower than those obtained by gamma spectrometry. The proposed method is simple, robust, inexpensive and avoids the need of taking water samples for laboratory analysis. It facilitates studies of the spatial distribution of Rn-222 in water basins by exposure of polycarbonate specimens at different spots or depths and subsequent liquid scintillation counting. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.