A new method for evaluating the effectiveness of plastic packaging against radon penetration

Yue Meng; Jerry Busenitz; Andreas Piepke

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108963

A new method for evaluating the effectiveness of plastic packaging against radon penetration

Appl Radiat Isot. 2020 Feb:156:108963. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108963. Epub 2019 Oct 31.

Authors

Yue Meng¹, Jerry Busenitz², Andreas Piepke²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA. Electronic address: mengyue@sjtu.edu.cn.
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA.

PMID: 31708324
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108963

Abstract

We describe a new method to evaluate radon barriers which is unique in that it gauges not only the intrinsic resistance to radon penetration of a plastic film but also the integrity of bags fabricated from the film and sealed following some protocol, and it employs gamma spectroscopy rather than alpha spectroscopy. We report the results of sealed bags fabricated from polypropylene, Nylon, Mylar, metallized Mylar, FEP, and PFA. Evaluation of the fluoropolymers FEP and PFA as radon barriers are the first such measurements.

Keywords: Deposition of daughters; HPGe detector; Integrity of bags; Packing films; Radon penetration; Radon permeability.