An experimental method for quantitatively evaluating the elemental processes of indoor radioactive aerosol behavior

Abstract

An experimental method for quantitatively evaluating the elemental processes governing the indoor behaviour of naturally occurring radioactive aerosols was proposed. This method utilises transient response of aerosol concentrations to an artificial change in aerosol removal rate by turning on and off an air purifier. It was shown that the indoor-outdoor exchange rate and the indoor deposition rate could be estimated by a continuous measurement of outdoor and indoor aerosol number concentration measurements and by the method proposed in this study. Although the scatter of the estimated parameters is relatively large, both the methods gave consistent results. It was also found that the size distribution of radioactive aerosol particles and hence activity median aerodynamic diameter remained not largely affected by the operation of the air purifier, implying the predominance of the exchange and deposition processes over other processes causing change in the size distribution such as the size growth by coagulation and the size dependence of deposition.