System and method for detecting radon concentration in atmosphere
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the technical field of gas detection, and particularly relates to a system and a method for detecting radon concentration in atmosphere.
Background
Radon and its short-lived decay daughter. Is a member of the uranium and needle families in the natural radioactive series, is one of the main sources of natural radiation to human beings, and accounts for about 1.3mSv per year and 54 percent of the natural radiation, wherein the contribution of indoor radon is about 1 mSv.
International cancer research institute has confirmed that radon and its daughter can cause cancer in human body. Epidemiological studies indicate that inhalation of radon and its daughter is the main cause of the lung cancer of miners, and radon and its decay daughter can stay in lung cell tissues, and alpha particles are radiated during decay process to destroy DNA molecules in cell nucleus, thereby causing cancer.
In the 21 st century today, a great number of building materials and consumer goods are flushed indoors, so that the sources and the varieties of indoor radon pollution are continuously increased, people are increasingly seriously threatened on the physical health, and the research and the prevention of radon are highly valued by the government of China.
The harm and prevention and control of radon are very important to the government of China, according to the regulation in GB50325-2020 & lt & gt control standard for indoor environmental pollution of civil building engineering of China, the radon concentration in the indoor environment of the civil building engineering is not higher than 150Bq/m3, and the regulation of the 4.1.1 control item in the existing national standard & lt & gt evaluation Standard for Green buildings (GB/T50378-2019): "there should be no harm of radon-containing soil in the building site".
Similarly, with the development of economy and the improvement of the living standard of residents, agenda is provided for monitoring the radon level in air, investigating radon pollution inside buildings and residents and protecting environment. Therefore, the radon concentration in the atmosphere needs to be monitored online in real time to ensure the safety of people's life and social stability.
The measurement of radon and its daughter is divided into total quantity measurement and energy spectrum measurement, and radon gas measurement, radon daughter measurement, radon plus daughter measurement can be divided according to the measurement object, and based on this, various types of measuring instruments such as FT-648 type radon measuring instrument, RAD7 type radon measuring instrument, FD-3017 type radon measuring instrument, etc. have been developed at home and abroad.
The FT-648 double-filter membrane type radon measuring instrument is the only instrument which can directly measure the radon concentration and radon daughter without calibration at present in China. The instrument adopts the principle of measuring radon concentration by double filter membranes to obtain a measurement result in time, the measurement result is not influenced by the radioactive equilibrium degree between radon and daughter thereof, and the radon concentration measuring instrument is suitable for the fields of investigation and research of environmental radon concentration, indoor radon concentration measurement, accident monitoring, radiology, earthquake monitoring, meteorological research, environmental monitoring of national defense engineering nuclear facilities and the like.
The RAD7 is a multifunctional general-purpose instrument capable of performing comprehensive measurement of radon and can work in multiple modes to accomplish different testing purposes, such as mines, various disposal sites, laboratories, factories and mines, etc. The instrument design is exquisite, easy operation.
The alpha energy spectrum emanometer is a new generation intelligent radiation protection detecting instrument which adopts a high resolution semiconductor alpha ray detector and takes a microcontroller as a core. The instrument can meet the requirements of national standard 'civil building engineering indoor environmental pollution control standard' and national standard 'indoor air quality standard' on the measurement of radon in indoor air, engineering site soil and water. The radon level monitoring and pollution control device can be used for monitoring the radon level and pollution control in civil building engineering and indoor radiation environments, and the radon concentration investigation and evaluation in soil of civil building engineering sites can also be used for radon concentration radiation detection in mineral resource exploration, engineering geological exploration, environment radon concentration monitoring of nuclear industry related departments, earthquake and geological disaster forecast monitoring, determination of geological structures in geological investigation, water quality evaluation and other works, and the like.
Although a large number of measuring instruments are available, the instruments have some disadvantages such as measurement sensitivity and detection limit to some extent in performance. Under the requirements of quick, large-quantity, correct and continuous measurement, instruments and measurement technologies used for a long time in the past cannot be completely met.
The traditional method adopts direct measurement of alpha particles generated by Rn decay, and because the alpha particles have weaker penetrating power in air and weaker attenuation condition in air with the same thickness than gamma rays, the device structure and the measurement condition required for measuring the alpha particles are relatively more complex, and the measurement accuracy is lower than that of the gamma rays.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the defects in the prior art, the system and the method for detecting the radon gas concentration in the atmosphere provided by the invention solve the problem that the sensitivity and the detection limit are insufficient when the existing radon gas concentration is measured.
In order to achieve the purpose of the invention, the invention adopts the technical scheme that: an atmospheric radon concentration detection system comprising:
the detection device is used for collecting gamma photons generated by radon daughters in the environment and determining the energy distribution of the gamma photons;
and the data processing device is used for analyzing the energy distribution of the gamma photons, measuring gamma rays generated by decay of the radon daughter and further calculating the radon gas concentration in the atmosphere in an inversion manner.
Further, the detection device comprises a lead chamber, a scintillator, a photomultiplier and an electronic circuit;
the lead chamber is of an inverted triangular structure with an open upper end, and the scintillator, the photomultiplier and the electronic circuit are sequentially arranged from top to bottom and are arranged in the lead chamber;
the scintillator, the photomultiplier and the electronic circuit are sequentially connected, and the electronic circuit is further connected with the data processing device.
Further, the lead chamber is used for shielding ground gamma rays;
the scintillator is used for collecting gamma photons in the environment and transmitting light signals to the photomultiplier;
the photomultiplier is used for converting the optical signal into an electric signal and transmitting the electric signal to an electronic circuit;
the electronic circuit is used for amplifying and analyzing the amplitude of the received electric signal to obtain the energy distribution of gamma photons and transmitting the energy distribution to the data processing device.
Further, the lead wall thickness of the lead chamber is 8 cm;
the scintillator is at least 1L of scintillator crystals.
A radon gas concentration detection method of a radon gas concentration detection system in the atmosphere comprises the following steps:
s1, collecting gamma photons generated by radon daughter through a detection device, determining the energy distribution of the gamma photons and transmitting the gamma photons to a data processing device;
s2, based on the energy distribution, measuring gamma rays generated by decay of the radon daughters in the data processing device by adopting a radon daughters gamma energy spectrum analysis method;
and S3, calculating the radon gas concentration in the atmosphere through inversion by using the measured gamma rays.
Further, in the radon gas concentration detection method, the isotope of radon gas is used222The measurement result of Rn is characterized by the concentration of radon gas in the atmosphere.
Further, in the step S2, when the count value of the gamma rays obtained by the measurement is N0Gamma count N per unit time, unit volumetvComprises the following steps:
where T is the measurement time and V is the measured gas volume.
Further, the step S3 is specifically:
s31, counting N according to gammatvDetermining the source of gamma-rays214Concentration A of BiBi:
Where ε is the detection efficiency, pγIs composed of214The probability of the Bi emitting gamma rays;
s32, according to222Rn decay chain, and calculating radon gas concentration A in the atmosphere by inversionRa:
In the formula (I), the compound is shown in the specification,
is composed of
214Pb is emitted by beta decay
214The probability of Bi is higher than that of Bi,
is composed of
218Po is emitted by alpha decay
214The probability of Pb;
is composed of
222Ra emits by alpha decay
218Probability of Po.
Further, the detection efficiency ∈ was determined by monte carlo simulation and physical experiments.
The invention has the beneficial effects that:
(1) the invention solves the technical problem of insufficient sensitivity and detection limit during atmospheric radon concentration measurement, and realizes real-time online measurement of atmospheric radon by analysis through radon daughter gamma energy spectrum measurement.
(2) The invention designs a detection device for measuring radon in the atmosphere, and adopts lead to shield radioactivity from the ground, thereby ensuring the accuracy of atmospheric radon measurement.
(3) The method of the invention does not directly measure the alpha ray generated by decay of radon gas, but carries out calculation and inversion according to the gamma ray which is easier to measure by decay of daughter of the radon gas, thereby improving the detection efficiency of radon gas concentration.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a radon concentration detection technique in the atmosphere.
Fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a detection device in the present invention.
FIG. 3 is a flow chart of information transmission of the radon concentration detection system in the atmosphere according to the present invention.
FIG. 4 is a flow chart of the method for detecting radon concentration in the atmosphere in the present invention.
FIG. 5 shows a schematic diagram of the present invention222Rn decay process schematic diagram.
Fig. 6 is a flowchart of the detection efficiency epsilon determination in the present invention.
Detailed Description
The following description of the embodiments of the present invention is provided to facilitate the understanding of the present invention by those skilled in the art, but it should be understood that the present invention is not limited to the scope of the embodiments, and it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined and defined in the appended claims, and all matters produced by the invention using the inventive concept are protected.
Example 1:
as shown in FIGS. 1-2, a system for detecting radon concentration in atmosphere, comprising:
the detection device is used for collecting gamma photons generated by radon daughters in the environment and determining the energy distribution of the gamma photons;
and the data processing device is used for analyzing the energy distribution of the gamma photons, measuring gamma rays generated by decay of the radon daughter and further calculating the radon gas concentration in the atmosphere in an inversion manner.
The detection device in fig. 2 comprises a lead chamber, a scintillator, a photomultiplier tube and an electronic circuit;
the lead chamber is of an inverted triangular structure with an open upper end, and the scintillator, the photomultiplier and the electronic circuit are sequentially arranged from top to bottom and are arranged in the lead chamber;
the scintillator, the photomultiplier and the electronic circuit are sequentially connected, and the electronic circuit is further connected with the data processing device.
The lead chamber is used for shielding ground gamma rays, the whole measurement is possibly influenced due to the fact that the gamma rays exist in natural environments such as soil and peripheral wall bodies, the lead chamber is used for shielding the ground background in order to reduce the influence of the ground background on the measurement and improve the measurement precision of atmospheric radon concentration, the lead wall thickness of the lead chamber in the implementation is 8cm, the lead chamber structure in the implementation is adopted, the influence of the ground gamma rays on the detection crystal can be reduced as much as possible, and the measurement precision is improved.
The scintillator is used for collecting gamma photons in the environment and transmitting light signals to the photomultiplier, and aiming at the measurement requirement, the larger the volume of the scintillator is, the better the overall detection effect of the detection device is, but the higher the cost is, and the scintillator crystal with the size of at least 1L is adopted in the embodiment.
The photomultiplier is used for converting the optical signal into an electric signal and transmitting the electric signal to an electronic circuit;
the electronic circuit is used for amplifying and analyzing the amplitude of the received electric signal to obtain the energy distribution of gamma photons and transmitting the energy distribution to the data processing device.
Based on the above structure, as shown in fig. 3, the working process of the system is as follows: after the detection device is installed, gamma photons generated by radon daughters in the environment are collected by the scintillator, after the scintillator excites the scintillator to emit light, the scintillator transmits light signals to the photomultiplier to carry out amplification and amplitude analysis, the energy distribution collected by the detection device is finally displayed, the energy distribution is analyzed, the number of gamma rays emitted by the radon daughters is obtained, and then the concentration of radon gas in the atmosphere is calculated in an inversion mode.
Example 2:
based on the radon gas concentration detection system in the atmosphere in the above embodiment 1, this embodiment provides a corresponding radon gas concentration detection method, as shown in fig. 4, including the following steps:
s1, collecting gamma photons generated by radon daughter through a detection device, determining the energy distribution of the gamma photons and transmitting the gamma photons to a data processing device;
s2, based on the energy distribution, measuring gamma rays generated by decay of the radon daughters in the data processing device by adopting a radon daughters gamma energy spectrum analysis method;
and S3, calculating the radon gas concentration in the atmosphere through inversion by using the measured gamma rays.
In the radon gas concentration detection method of the present embodiment, radon has three isotopes (i) (i.e., (ii) (ii))222Rn、220Rn、219Rn), decay chains respectively originating from the native radionuclide in the crust238U、232Th、235And U is adopted. In the whole course of the world,238of U containsRatio of measurement232Th is small, but the half-life is shorter, so the radioactivity of the two is approximately equal. In the same unit time of the unit time,222rn and220the number of nuclei of Rn can remain substantially equal. But because of220Rn has a short half-life (54.5s) and is only a few220Rn can be transferred from the crust to the atmosphere and remain in the atmosphere220Rn activity is still insufficient222And 10% of Rn.219Rn has a shorter half-life of only 3.9s, decays immediately after generation, and its presence is hardly detectable in the whole atmosphere. Due to the fact that220Rn and219rn content is too small and half-life is short, which is far less important than the relatively long half-life (3.82d)222Rn, from the perspective of radiation hygiene, the research significance of studying the two is not great.222Rn is a main component of natural radioactivity in low-level atmosphere, has a half-life period of 3.83d, can diffuse from deeper stratum soil, migrate to the surface of the earth and further be released into the atmosphere, and can be transmitted to a remote zone along with flowing air. Thus, in this embodiment, an isotope of radon is introduced222The measurement result of Rn is characterized by the concentration of radon gas in the atmosphere,222the Rn decay process is shown in fig. 5.
In the course of the above-mentioned decay process,222the decay of Rn is accompanied by the generation of alpha particles, which can also be said to be an alpha decay element.222Rn will first decay into218Po,218Po undergoes a further series of alpha and beta decays (including species Po, Pb, and Bi),222short term decay products of Rn include218Po to214Po (Ra A to RaC') four nuclides. As a whole, in view of the above,222the total half-life of the decay chain of Rn is about 30min, and the radioactive decay of alpha and beta is accompanied by the generation of gamma rays (such as214Bi, gamma ray of 0.609 MeV), therefore, the concentration of radon gas in the atmosphere can be inverted by measuring gamma ray in this embodiment.
In the above step S2, when the count value of the gamma rays obtained by the measurement is N0Gamma count N per unit time, unit volumetvComprises the following steps:
where T is the measurement time and V is the measured gas volume.
The step S3 is specifically:
s31, counting N according to gammatvDetermining the source of gamma-rays214Concentration A of BiBi:
Wherein ε is 0.609MeVγIs composed of214The probability that Bi emits gamma rays of 0.609 MeV;
s32, according to222Rn decay chain, and calculating radon gas concentration A in the atmosphere by inversionRa:
In the formula (I), the compound is shown in the specification,
is composed of
214Pb is emitted by beta decay
214The probability of Bi is higher than that of Bi,
is composed of
218Po is emitted by alpha decay
214The probability of Pb;
is composed of
222Ra emits by alpha decay
218Probability of Po.
In this embodiment, the detection efficiency epsilon is determined by monte carlo simulation and physical experiments, the determination process is as shown in fig. 6, a monte carlo model is established for simulation, and the computer simulates the detection efficiency epsilon obtained by simulation; then through the whole of the buildingPhysical model of platform by40K in solution to perform real physical experiments. And (4) obtaining the detection efficiency epsilon through computer simulation nuclear physics experiment calculation.