The Malaysian Journal of Analytical Sciences Vol 17 No1 (2013): 71 – 82

 

 

 

VARIATION OF RADON EMANATION IN WORKPLACES AS A FUNCTION OF ROOM PARAMETERS

 

(Variasi Emanasi Radon Di Tempat Kerja Sebagai Fungsi Parameter Bilik)

 

Norafatin Khalid, Amran Ab. Majid*, Aznan Fazli Ismail, Muhamad Samudi Yasir, Redzuwan Yahaya,

 Izzaty Azani Mustafa

 

Nuclear Science Programme,

 Faculty of Science and Technology,

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia

 

*Corresponding author: amran@ukm.my

 

 

Abstract

Modern life style requires people to spend most of their time indoors either in a house or in the workplace. Most modern buildings are made from soil based material which may consist of low concentration of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM). It is known that one of the daughters of natural uranium is ²²⁶Ra which eventually produce radon (²²²Rn) gas. Recently, more evidence has linked lung cancer to exposure to high levels of radon and also to cigarette-smoking. Consequently, this research was conducted to study the radon emanation rates in different workplaces. The radon emanations in 27 rooms with three different dimension (54 m³, 210 m³ and 351 m³) and different building materials were determined for 96 hours using Sun Nuclear Radon Monitor. The radon emanations in the rooms studied were found to be in the range of 20.6 Bq m^-3 hour^-1 to 134.3 Bq m^-3  hour^-1.The increase in humidity was found to significantly increase the radon emanation rates in the building, whereas the increase in temperature will result the decrease of radon emanation rates. In addition, the findings shows that the radon emanation rates in building were higher during the night until early in the morning which is in agreement with the findings on humidity and temperature factors.

 

Keywords: Radon emanation, building materials, humidity, temperature

 

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