Electret ion chamber radon monitors measure dissolved 222Rn in water

This paper describes a simple and relatively inexpensive method of determining the concentration of dissolved 222Rn in water. The method involves a recently developed electret-passive environmental radon monitor, which uses an electret ion chamber. The procedure consists of sealing a known volume of a carefully collected water sample with one of these monitors in an exposure container and determining the average equilibrium 222Rn gas concentration in the air phase during the exposure time period. This average concentration can then be used to calculate the 222Rn concentration in the original water sample. Identical samples were analyzed both by this new method and by a standard liquid scintillation method, and the results were compared over a wide range of 222Rn concentrations. There was good agreement except that the electret ion chamber method gave results that were consistently lower by about 15%. This bias in the results was attributed to both 222Rn losses during sample handling and possibly to some errors in the assumptions made in the theoretical model. A correction factor is recommended to bring the results of this technique into agreement with the standard method. The procedures are simple and economical and can be easily employed by many primary 222Rn-measuring laboratories currently using these monitors for measuring indoor 222Rn.