EMANATION OF RADON-222 FROM DIFFERENT SOIL TYPES AND SOIL GROUPS

In this paper, we deal with measurement of Rn-222 emanation coefficient (K-e) of soils using an accumulation method. We created a database of K-e values of dried soils for various soil types and soil groups, classified by the size of soil particles. For 18 different soil samples we obtained the K-e values in range 0.083-0.234. The analysis of radon emanation dependence on moisture for seven of these samples shows two different trends which were related to soil texture (clays or sands). Soils with predominant sandy particles prove weak dependence on moisture and K-e values from minimum value (at zero moisture) do not increase much (max 15% increase on every 5% of moisture), for soils with majority of clayey particles the moisture can affect the K-e more significantly (increase up to 60%).