Radon Progeny Adsorption on Facial Masks.

Int J Environ Res Public Health

GSI Helmholtzzentrum Für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Planckstr. 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.

Published: September 2022

The radioactive noble gas radon and its short-living progeny are inhaled during respiration, depositing their decay energies in the lungs. These progeny are considered responsible for more than 95% of the total effective dose and are, together with radon, classified as carcinogenic for lung cancer. Consequently, filtration of the progeny could reduce the dose to the lungs. In our study, we investigated the filtration properties of FFP2 versus surgical masks (II R) for radon and its decay products. The masks were attached to a measurement device, which enabled determination of the size distribution of radon progeny, ranging from unattached to clustered progeny. In parallel, it measured the radon activity concentration during experiments. By comparing background measurements without mask and experiments with masks, the percentage of retained unattached radon progeny was determined for FFP2 (98.8 ± 0.6%) and II R masks (98.4 ± 0.7%). For clustered progeny, the retained fraction was 85.2 ± 18.1% for FFP2 and 79.5 ± 22.1% for II R masks while radon was not filtered. We can show that masks are effective in filtering radon progeny and thus are capable of reducing the total effective dose to the lungs.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9517228PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191811337DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

radon progeny
16
radon
9
progeny
8
total effective
8
effective dose
8
dose lungs
8
masks radon
8
clustered progeny
8
masks
7
progeny adsorption
4

Similar Publications

Radon progeny: Behaviour and influencing factors in indoor and outdoor environment.

Appl Radiat Isot

February 2025

Radiological Physics and Advisory Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, 400085, India; Homi Bhabha National Institute, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai, 400094, India.

Radon progeny are the major contributor to inhalation dose to humans from natural sources of radiation. In addition, they are also used as tracers to study atmospheric phenomena. This makes it important to study the behaviour of Radon Progeny in both indoor and outdoor environment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Assessment of cellular dose and damage induced by radon and its progeny using the BEAS-2B cell mesh model.

Appl Radiat Isot

February 2025

State Key Laboratory of Radiation Medicine and Protection, School of Radiation Medicine and Protection, Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiological Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China. Electronic address:

The decay of radon and its progeny mainly produces α particles and β particles. Due to their short range and high linear energy transfer (LET) of α particles, it is necessary to evaluate the dose deposition at the cellular and subcellular levels so as to better assess their health effects on the human body. Given that the lung is the primary target organ for radon exposure, we utilized human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B cells) to construct a realistic mesh model.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Monte Carlo techniques were used to simulate the air diffusion of exhaled radon/thoron atoms from a wall, the formation and decay of different radioactive species during transport, and the response of a bare LR-115 detector placed on the exhaling surface. The spatial distributions of radionuclide decays and the detector's partial sensitivities to radon/thoron and their progeny were determined. The simulation results were numerically validated through comparisons with published theoretical and experimental data.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In different measurement tasks, the duration allocated for radon progeny concentration measurement varies, and the requirements for measurement precision also differ. To accommodate the needs of various radon progeny concentration measurement tasks, this study takes the error in radon progeny concentration measurement as the optimization goal and the time points of the three-stage method as the optimization target, establishing an optimized three-stage method for radon progeny concentration measurement. The optimization algorithm allocates the three time periods under any total measurement time requirement, ensuring the highest measurement precision.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Exhalation of Rn-219 by patients treated with Radium-223.

EJNMMI Phys

January 2025

Department for Radiation Protection and Medical Physics, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg- Str. 1, 30625, Hannover, Germany.

Background: Treatment with Ra-223 dichloride is approved for the therapy of castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) with symptomatic bone metastases and no known visceral metastases in Europe since 2013, and Ra-223 is under discussion for labelling other molecules and nanoparticles. The direct progeny of Ra-223 is Rn-219, also known as actinon, a radioactive noble gas with a half-life of 3.98 s.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!