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Novel liquid scintillator radon detector

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Abstract

Purpose

Radon is a noble gas, which endangers our health. The liquid scintillator is one of the detector materials used to measure radon in the environment. But there are challenges in measuring radon using a liquid scintillator, such as independent manual operation and long measurement periods.

Methods and Results

We propose a liquid scintillator detector for the rapid measurement of radon, which is composed of a breathable liquid scintillator probe and photomultiplier tube. Cascade decay recognition and pulse shape discrimination (PSD) were used to select radon events. \(^{241}\) Am4(\(\alpha \)) and \(^{90}\)Sr(\(\beta \)) source calibration was used to optimize the PSD figure of merit of the liquid scintillator, and a \(^{232}\)Th (\(^{220}\)Rn) diffusion source was used to verify the function of this novel detector for measuring radon.

Conclusion

The detector had an integrated design for sampling and measurement, which simplified the measurement steps. Thus, this novel liquid scintillator detector demonstrated promise for use in radon-detection systems.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11775252).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, China

    Junjie Li, Xin Ling, Yong Deng, Fengbo Gu, Xiaohui Qi & Guopu Qu

  2. Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, 100049, China

    Xilei Sun, Jiaxuan Ye, Baohua Qi, Dejing Du & Zhihang Zhu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Particle Detection and Electronics, Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xilei Sun

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Jiaxuan Ye, Baohua Qi, Dejing Du & Zhihang Zhu

  5. Beijing Key Laboratory of Passive Safety Technology for Nuclear Energy, School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, 102206, China

    Xiaoxue Fan

  6. School of Information Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, 341000, China

    Huan Jiang

  7. National Engineering Research Center for Rare Earth Materials, General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals, Beijing, 100088, China

    Chenger Wang

Authors
  1. Junjie Li
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  2. Xilei Sun
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  3. Jiaxuan Ye
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  4. Baohua Qi
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  5. Xin Ling
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  6. Yong Deng
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  7. Dejing Du
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  8. Xiaoxue Fan
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  9. Fengbo Gu
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  10. Xiaohui Qi
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  11. Huan Jiang
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  12. Chenger Wang
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  13. Zhihang Zhu
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  14. Guopu Qu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xilei Sun or Guopu Qu.

Additional information

Jiaxuan Ye, Baohua Qi, Xin Ling, Yong Deng, Dejing Du, Xiaoxue Fan, Fengbo Gu, Xiaohui Qi, Huan Jiang, Chenger Wang, and Zhihang Zhu these authors contributed equally to this work.

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Cite this article

Li, J., Sun, X., Ye, J. et al. Novel liquid scintillator radon detector. Radiat Detect Technol Methods 6, 294–301 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41605-022-00322-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41605-022-00322-8

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