Long-term measurements of radon, thoron and their airborne progeny in 25 schools in Republic of Srpska

Curguz, Zoran and Stojanovska, Zdenka and Zunic, Zora S. and Kolarz, P. and Ischikawa, T. and Omori, Y. and Mishra, Rosaline and Sapra, B.K. and Vaupotic, Janja and Ujic, P. and Bossew, Peter (2015) Long-term measurements of radon, thoron and their airborne progeny in 25 schools in Republic of Srpska. Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, 148. pp. 163-169. ISSN 0265-931X

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Abstract

This article reports results of the first investigations on indoor radon, thoron and their decay products
concentration in 25 primary schools of Banja Luka, capital city of Republic Srpska. The measurements
have been carried out in the period from May 2011 to April 2012 using 3 types of commercially available
nuclear track detectors, named: long-term radon monitor (GAMMA 1)- for radon concentration measurements
(CRn); radon-thoron discriminative monitor (RADUET) for thoron concentration measurements
(CTn); while equilibrium equivalent radon concentration (EERC) and equilibrium equivalent thoron
concentrations (EETC) measured by Direct Radon Progeny Sensors/Direct Thoron Progeny Sensors (DRPS/
DTPS) were exposed in the period November 2011 to April 2012. In each school the detectors were
deployed at 10 cm distance from the wall. The obtained geometric mean concentrations were
CRn ¼ 99 Bq m�3 and CTn ¼ 51 Bq m�3 for radon and thoron gases respectively. Those for equilibrium
equivalent radon concentration (EERC) and equilibrium equivalent thoron concentrations (EETC) were
11.2 Bq m�3 and 0.4 Bq m�3, respectively. The correlation analyses showed weak relation only between
CRn and CTn as well as between CTn and EETC. The influence of the school geographical locations and
factors linked to buildings characteristic in relation to measured concentrations were tested. The
geographical location and floor level significantly influence CRn while CTn depend only from building
materials (ANOVA, p � 0.05). The obtained geometric mean values of the equilibrium factors were 0.123
for radon and 0.008 for thoron.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Natural sciences > Physical sciences
Divisions: Faculty of Medical Science
Depositing User: Zdenka Stojanovska
Date Deposited: 30 Sep 2015 08:52
Last Modified: 30 Sep 2015 12:51
URI: https://eprints.ugd.edu.mk/id/eprint/13888

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