Greenhouse gases and ionizing radiation, new tools to measure them – Ambient&Ambienti

This is the European TraceRadon project, with 17 international partners including ENEA

The monitoring of the greenhouse gases and of ionizing radiations it is an important step to understand the levels of pollution in the atmosphere, how they interact with each other and with other variables, and what possible actions to take. For these reasons, new measurement and monitoring systems have been developed

by the consortium of 17 international partners of the European project TraceRadonwhich also includes ENEA with the National Institute of Metrology of Ionizing Radiations (INMRI), the Institute of Radioprotection and the Laboratory of Observations and Measurements for the Environment and Climate.

These new measures have been calibrated on radona naturally occurring radioactive gas generated in soils and rocks that accumulates indoors and is considered the main source of ionizing radiation.

The more accurate data obtained with these new methodologies will be useful to atmospheric monitoring networks for to calculate both the levels of CO_2, what about radiation protection.

“Radon can be used as natural tracer for atmospheric studies which concern the transport of air masses and the concentrations of gaseous pollutants which accumulate mainly in the part of the atmosphere directly influenced by the earth’s surface”, explain the researchers Francesco Cardellini And Marco Capogni of INMRI-ENEA. “The variation in the height of this layer (from a few tens of meters to a few kilometers) affects the concentration of pollutants in the atmosphere and therefore also that of radon. Consequently, a precise, accurate and reliable measurement of the concentration in the atmosphere and the flux from the ground of this element is of considerable importance for atmospheric models which allow, for example, the estimation of greenhouse gases such as CO₂”, they add.

Among the main results achieved by the project, there is: development of new methods And calibration procedures useful tools for measuring outdoor radon concentrations (from a few units up to hundreds of becquerel per cubic meter), to be used in atmospheric monitoring and radiation protection networks. “In particular, AENEAS has developed an accumulation chamber for measurements of radon flow from the soil, whose data, combined with physical analyzes of the soil and atmospheric parameters, have made it possible to validate various mathematical models of transport of this gas”, underline the two researchers of INMRI-ENEA.

Furthermore, experts from all over Europe participated at the ENEA Casaccia Research Center in one of the four measurement campaigns to develop procedures capable of detecting, in an increasingly reliable way, the flow of radon from the soil. “Improving these types of measurements will help research on climate change and radiation protection, including their use to identify so-called priority areas at risk of radona colourless, odorless and tasteless gas, which can represent a serious risk to health: its radioactive decay generates unstable atoms, radionuclides, which once inhaled emit energy in the form of radiation in the respiratory system”, explains Alessandro Rizzo of the Institute of Radiation Protection.

Already today, in the European research infrastructure ICOS, of which the ENEA Observatory in Lampedusa is part, there are stations where radon in the atmosphere is continuously measured. “However, instruments and measurements of this gas still need to be improved especially in the presence of low concentrations, in order to provide increasingly reliable data for the study of air pollution – and for radiation monitoring to support national surveillance systems ”, they underline Damiano Sferlazzo And Francesco Monteleone of the ENEA Laboratory of Observations and Measurements for the Environment and Climate. “Thanks to this project we will now aim to transfer the new instruments to calibration laboratories for measurements in the field of ionizing radiation, to organizations developing standards (e.g. IEC, ISO) and finally to end users active in gas monitoring at greenhouse effect and radiation protection”, conclude the researchers.