• Title/Summary/Keyword: indoor radon

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Studies on the Spatial Analysis for Distribution Estimation of Radon Concentration at the Seoul Area (서울지역 라돈농도의 분포예측을 위한 공간분석법 연구)

  • Baek, Seung-A;Lee, Tae-Jung;Kim, Shin-Do;Kim, Dong-Sool
    • Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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    • v.24 no.5
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    • pp.538-550
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    • 2008
  • Radon is an invisible, odorless, and radioactive gas. It is formed by the disintegration of radium, which is a decay product of uranium. Some amounts of radon gas and its products are present ubiquitously in the soil, water, and air. Particularly high radon levels occur in regions of high uranium content. Although radon is permeable into indoor environment not only through geological features (bed rock and permeability) but also through the construction materials and underground water, the radiation from the geological features is generally main exposure factor. So there can be a problem in a certain space such as the underground and/or relatively poor ventilation condition. In this study, a GIS technique was used in order to investigate spatial distribution of radon measured from sub- way stations of 1 thru 8 in Seoul, Korea in 1991, 1998, 2001, and 2006. Spatial analysis was applied to reproduce the radon distribution. We utilized spatial analysis techniques such as inverse distance weighted averaging (IDW) and kriging techniques which are widely used to relate between different spatial points. To validate the results from the analyses, the jackknife technique for an uncertainty test was performed. When the number of measuring sites was less than 100 and also when the number of omitted sites increased, the kriging technique was better than IDW. On the other hand, when the number of sites was over 100, IDW technique was better than kriging technique. Thus the selection of analytical tool was affected sensitives by the analysis based on the number of measuring sites.

Real-time monitoring of radon background level at Gosan site, Jeju Island (제주도 고산지역의 라돈 배경농도 실시간 모니터링)

  • Kang, Chang-Hee;Kim, Won-Hyung;Hu, Chul-Goo;Kang, Dong-Hun
    • Analytical Science and Technology
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.7-13
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    • 2012
  • The real-time monitoring of radon ($^{222}Rn$) concentrations has been carried out to evaluate the background concentration level of atmospheric radon in Gosan site, Jeju Island. The mean concentration of radon for the recent 10 years was 2831 $mBq/m^3$ (0.077 pCi/L), which was 19.5 time lower than that of indoor radon in Korea. The seasonal concentrations were 2657, 2071, 3249, 3384 $mBq/m^3$ respectively for spring, summer, fall, and winter seasons. In monthly comparison, the radon concentrations were high in October and low in July. The hourly concentrations have increased during the nighttime, showing 3666 $mBq/m^3$ at 7 a.m., and decreased relatively during the daytime, showing 2755 $mBq/m^3$ at 2~3 p.m. From the back trajectory analysis, the radon concentrations showed higher values when the air mass was moved from the Asia continent to Jeju area, on the other hand, it showed low values when it was moved from the North Pacific Ocean.

Pore Characterisitics and Adsorption Performance Evaluation of Magnesium Oxide Matrix by Active Carbon Particle Size (활성탄소 입도에 따른 산화마그네슘 경화체의 공극특성과 흡착성능 평가)

  • Pyeon, Su-Jeong;Lee, Sang-Soo
    • Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.59-65
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    • 2018
  • Radon gas is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that occurs when uranium, a natural radioactive material in rocks and soils, collapses. 85% of the annual radiation exposure of the human body is due to natural radiation, of which 50% is radon. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) survey, 62 out of 1,000 smokers and 7 out of 1,000 nonsmokers are exposed to lung cancer when exposed to radon gas for a long time. In order to reduce the risk of radon gas, activate carbon was used to fabricate matrix, and the pore properties and radon reduction properties were investigated. When the activate carbon was used, the radon gas concentration was drastically reduced and the graph was changed as the measurement period became longer. The pore distribution and microporous properties, which are one of the material properties of activate carbon, can be grasped.

Properties of Cement Matrix Using Vegetable Activated Carbon (식물성 활성탄을 활용한 시멘트 경화체의 특성)

  • Lee, Jae-Hoon;Park, Chae-Wool;Lee, Sang-Soo
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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    • 2020.06a
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    • pp.138-139
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    • 2020
  • With the rapid progress of industrialization, indoor air quality is a very important factor for modern people who spend most of their day indoors. The recent issue of fine dust and radon on the portal site's popularity search shows that interest in indoor air quality has increased. Fine dust causes respiratory diseases, and radon causes severe lung cancer. The new material was tested using plant activated carbon, palm activated carbon and bamboo activated carbon. Both palm activated carbon and bamboo activated carbon are porous materials and generate smooth physical adsorption. As a result of the experiment, both the activated carbon tends to gradually decrease in strength and fluidity as the replacement ratio increases. The reason for this is that both activated carbons have the property of absorbing moisture, so it is judged that the strength is lowered by absorbing moisture necessary for curing. In the case of fluidity, it is judged that the fluidity is reduced by absorbing the moisture required for the flow. In the future, if the problem of the color of the finished cured body is compensated, it will be possible to manufacture a functional finishing board to replace the existing interior finishing material.

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Quantitative Comparison of Univariate Kriging Algorithms for Radon Concentration Mapping (라돈 농도 분포도 작성을 위한 단변량 크리깅 기법의 정량적 비교)

  • KWAK, Geun-Ho;KIM, Yong-Jae;CHANG, Byung-Uck;PARK, No-Wook
    • Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.71-84
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    • 2017
  • Radon, which enters the interior environment from soil, rocks, and groundwater, is a radioactive gas that poses a serious risk to humans. Indoor radon concentrations are measured to investigate the risk of radon gas exposure and reliable radon concentration mapping is then performed for further analysis. In this study, we compared the predictive performance of various univariate kriging algorithms, including ordinary kriging and three nonlinear transform-based kriging algorithms (log-normal, multi-Gaussian, and indicator kriging), for mapping radon concentrations with an asymmetric distribution. To compare and analyze the predictive performance, we carried out jackknife-based validation and analyzed the errors according to the differences in the data intervals and sampling densities. From a case study in South Korea, the overall nonlinear transform-based kriging algorithms showed better predictive performance than ordinary kriging. Among the nonlinear transform-based kriging algorithms, log-normal kriging had the best performance, followed by multi-Gaussian kriging. Ordinary kriging was the best for predicting high values within the spatial pattern. The results from this study are expected to be useful in the selection of kriging algorithms for the spatial prediction of data with an asymmetric distribution.

The Study on Reduction of Hazardous Materials using Eco-friendly Charcoal Composite Sheet (친환경 활성탄 복합시트의 유해물질 저감 연구)

  • Choi, Il-Hong;Kang, Sang-Sik;Lee, Su-Min;Yang, Seung-Woo;Kim, Kyo-Tae;Park, Ji-Koon
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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    • v.12 no.5
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    • pp.615-621
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    • 2018
  • Recently, various environmentally friendly products have been developed for improving the indoor air quality while pursuing a well-being nature-friendly healthy life as a core value. In this research, we not only solve the problems of existing environmentally friendly paints, but also developed a charcoal composite seats that can reduce radon, which is a natural radioactive substance, and evaluated the reduction effect of radon, formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds. In the charcoal composite seats, a sodium silicate emulsion and charcoal were mixed to prepare an charcoal liquid coating material, and the composite seats was fabricated by air-spray coating method. In order to analyze the hazardous substance reduction performance of the fabricated charcoal composite seats, radon was designed to comply with the Ministry of the Environment standard, formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds were designed to comply with KCL-FIR-1085 standard. As a result of the experiment, the fabricated charcoal composite seats was evaluated as having a radon reduction capability of about 90.8% from 20 hours, formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds were 3 hours, and the reduction capability of 96.7% and 96.6% was found respectively. It is considered that these results can be utilized as basic data at the time of product development for improvement of indoor air quality.

Synthesization and Characterization of Pitch-based Activated Carbon Fiber for Indoor Radon Removal (실내 라돈가스 제거를 위한 Pitch계 활성탄소섬유 제조 및 특성연구)

  • Gwak, Dae-Cheol;Choi, Sang-Sun;Lee, Joon-Huyk;Lee, Soon-Hong
    • Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.207-218
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    • 2017
  • In this study, pitch-based activated carbon fibers (ACFs) were modified with pyrolysis fuel oil (PFO). Carbonized ACF samples were activated at $850^{\circ}C$, $880^{\circ}C$ and $900^{\circ}C$. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) and a BET surface area apparatus were employed to evaluate the indoor radon removal of each sample. Among three samples, the BET surface area and micropore area of ACF880 recorded the highest value with $1,420m^2{\cdot}g^{-1}$ and $1,270m^2{\cdot}g^{-1}$. Moreover, ACF880 had the lowest external surface area and BJH adsorption cumulative surface area of pores with $151m^2{\cdot}g^{-1}$ and $35.5m^2{\cdot}g^{-1}$. This indicates that satisfactory surface area depends on the appropriate temperature. With the above scope, ACF880 also achieved the highest radon absorption rate and speed in comparison to other samples. Therefore, we suggest that the optimum activation temperature for PFO containing ACFs is $880^{\circ}C$ for effective indoor radon adsorption.