Performance of a commercial radon-in-water measurement kit

Abstract Methods currently approved for the measurement of radon ( 222 Rn) in water in New York State are liquid scintillation counting and emanation into alpha-scintillation cells. A passive system using an electret ion chamber (EIC) was evaluated as an alternative for the measurement of radon in water. Over 130 water samples from a community water supply containing 32 Bq L −1 and 30 standards containing 686 Bq L −1 were measured using the EIC method over 1- to 4-day exposure times. For comparison, identical samples were measured using liquid scintillation counting. Results of duplicate samples were typically within 5% for liquid scintillation counting and within 10% for the EIC. With respect to accuracy, the EIC produced results that were consistently low by 11–15%.