Room-temperature Rn-222 adsorption using silver exchanged zeolites

We report on the remarkable property of silver exchanged zeolites to efficiently adsorb radon at room temperature. We investigated three commercially available zeolite materials and compared their adsorption performance to commonly available activated carbons by measuring ²²²Rn breakthrough curves under different experimental conditions. Depending on the type of carrier gas and gas velocity, dynamic adsorption factors k were found to be at least two orders of magnitude higher for zeolite materials as compared to activated carbons. Moisture control was found to be crucial for effective ²²²Rn adsorption since water has shown to exhibit a strong competitive effect. This contribution will present experimental results obtained from systematic investigations involving the practical usage of these materials. It is shown that more compact and economic room-temperature ²²²Rn adsorption systems can be designed using silver exchanged zeolites considerably reducing the impact of ²²²Rn originating from ²²⁶Ra emanations in environmental, scientific and industrial applications