INDOOR CIGARETTE-SMOKING - URANIUM CONTENTS AND CARRIER OF INDOOR RADON PRODUCTS

The effect of cigarette smoking inside a room on indoor radon daughter s concentration has been studied experimentally. As a result of indoor smoking, the number of aerosol particles inside a room has increased up to 600 times from 150 particles per cm(3). Injecting a radon source inside a room which contained cigarettes smoke showed a reduction in the plate out of radon daughters to the walls' surfaces and at the sam e time increased their concentration in indoor air as a result of thei r attachment to the cigarette smoke particles. These airborne particle s would be inhaled by everyone inside the room, regardless of whether he/she is smoking or not. Using a mixing fan in a clean and closed roo m reduced the activity of airborne radon daughters to a low level valu e by increasing their plate out to the inside room surfaces and other surfaces in the room. The plate out was reduced dramatically by indoor cigarette smoking. Plate out of radon daughters on fan blades will be always more than the plate out on wall's surfaces. The distribution o f plate out on fan blades was not uniform, while plate out on the six sides of room surfaces was almost uniform. The uranium distribution on the surfaces of the detectors attached to the pellets formed of fresh tobacco, tobacco ash and filter paper (used to withdraw cigarette smo ke) showed non-uniform distribution of fission fragments and mostly as track clusters like sunburst shape. An attempt was tried to estimate the uranium content by using scanning electron microscope.