Estimating the importance of factors influencing the radon-222 flux from building walls Original Research Article

Radiation hazard in dwellings is dominated by the contribution of radon-222 released from soil and bedrock, but the contribution of building materials can also be important. Using a simple air mixing model in a 2-story house with an attic and a basement, it is estimated that a significant risk arises when the Wall Radon exhalation Flux (WRF) exceeds 10 × 10− 3 Bq·m− 2·s− 1. WRF is studied using a multiphase advection–diffusion 3-layer analytical model with advective flow, possibly induced by a pressure deficit inside the house compared with the outside atmosphere. To first order, in most circumstances, the WRF is proportional to the wall thickness and to the radon source term, the effective radium concentration ECRa, which is the product of the radium-226 concentration by the emanation coefficient E. The WRF decreases with increasing material porosity and exhibits a maximum for water saturation of about 50%. For ECRa = 10 Bq·kg− 1, in many instances, WRF is larger than 10 × 10− 3 Bq·m− 2·s− 1 and, therefore, ECRa = 10 Bq·kg− 1 can be considered as the typical limit not to be exceeded by building materials. An upper limit of the WRF is obtained in the purely advective regime, independent of porosity or moisture content, which can thus be used as a robust safety guideline. The sensitivity of WRF to temperature, due to the temperature sensitivity of ECRa or the temperature sensitivity of radon Henry constant can be larger than 5% for the seasonal variation in the presence of slight pressure deficit. The temperature sensitivity of ECRa is the dominant effect, except for moist walls. Temperature and moisture variation effects on the WRF potentially can account for most observed seasonal variations of radon concentration in houses, in addition to seasonal changes of air exchange, suggesting that the contribution of walls should be considered when designing remediation strategies and studied with dedicated experiments.