Radon Facts
Radon Facts
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| Interesting Radon Facts: |
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| Pierre and Marie Curie reported findings in 1899 of a glowing gas that radium gave off. |
| Radon was discovered in 1900 by Friedrich Ernst Dorn, who called it radium emanation. |
| In 1910, two scientists, Sir William Ramsay and Robert Whytlaw-Gray, conducted further experiments on radon's properties and discovered that it was the heaviest known gas. |
| These scientists wrote the radium emanation was an awkward name, and named it niton for its brilliant phosphorescent properties. |
| The name was changed to radon by the International Committee for Chemical Elements and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in 1923. |
| There are thirty-six known isotopes of radon, all of them unstable, only four of which even have a half-life of longer than one hour, with the longest being only 3.8 days. |
| Rn-222 is the most abundant in nature of all of radon's isotopes due to the extremely short half-lives of the other isotopes. |
| The unit of measure for concentrations of radon gas is the becquerel per cubic meter. |
| Radon's abundance is believed to be between ten and one hundred Bq per cubic meter, depending on indoor or outdoor atmosphere. |
| In more standard measurements, that would be around 0.00000000000000000006 atoms of radon for each molecule of air. |
| While the concentration of radon drops significantly over the oceans, in caves it can be as high as 2000 becquerel per cubic meter. |
| Radon can be carried in oil pipelines due to its similar pressure and temperature properties to propane, which can cause the pipelines to become radioactive. |
| Radon's effect on the environment is a major concern for scientists and government agencies. |
| Many state and local governments, particularly in Iowa where radon overconcentration occurs naturally due to glacial movement on granite, have enacted radon-resistant construction legislation. |
| Radon has been used in pseudomedical practices throughout history, but has had an effect on killing cancerous cells while unfortunately producing free radicals. |
| Radon does serve a scientific purpose in tracking air masses and in research in predicting earthquakes. |
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