Introduction
CPAMs use a pump to draw air through a filter medium to collect airborne particulate matter that carries very small particles of radioactive material; the air itself is not radioactive. The particulate radioactive material might be natural, e.g., radon decay products ("progeny", e.g., 212Pb), or manmade, usually fission or activation products (e.g., 137Cs), or a combination of both. There are also "gas monitors" which pass the air through a sample chamber volume which is viewed continuously by a radiation detector. Radionuclides that occur in the gaseous form (e.g., 85Kr) are not collected on the CPAM filter to any appreciable extent, so that a separate monitoring system is needed to assess these nuclide concentrations in the sampled air. These gas monitors are often placed downstream of a CPAM so that any particulate matter in the sampled air is collected by the CPAM and thus will not contaminate the gas monitor's sample chamber.
Read more about this topic: Airborne Particulate Radioactivity Monitoring
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