Radon protection in apartments using a ventilation system wireless-controlled by radon activity concentration.

The new German Radiation Protection Act (StrlSchG) of 31 December 2018 established a reference value of 300 Bq m-3for the annual average radon activity concentration in buildings with recreation and living rooms, as well as in workplaces. It is expected that the reference value will be exceeded in a vast number of buildings throughout Germany and that radon protection measures will become indispensable. A simple and inexpensive radon protection measure for existing buildings is ventilation. In the scope of a joint project, ventilation systems with zone control and heat recovery are to be extended by the control parameter radon activity concentration. A highly sensitive, miniaturized radon monitor will be developed for this purpose, which can be integrated wirelessly into ventilation systems. Radon measurements were carried out in 13 apartments of an unoccupied heated apartment block in Germany over a period of three weeks in the wintertime. High radon activity concentrations were found on all three floors. The maximum values were 14000 Bq m-3on the first floor, 6000 Bq m-3on the second floor, and 2000 Bq m-3on the third floor. Ventilation experiments were carried out in an apartment with high radon activity concentration. Two decentralized ventilation systems with heat recovery were installed in each of the two opposite outside walls. The controlling device of the system was activated wirelessly depending on the radon activity concentration. The radon activity concentration was reduced from 8000 Bq m-3to 800 Bq m-3in a first experiment in the living room.

Particle encapsulation techniques for atom probe tomography of precipitates in microalloyed steels.

Atom probe tomography (APT) provides sub-nm resolution in the analysis of complex industrial steels. It can resolve the carbonitride precipitates in Nb-Ti microalloyed high-strength low-alloy (HSLA) steels that strongly affect material performance and illuminate the complex precipitation sequence before and during the thermo-mechanical controlled process (TMCP). However, the precipitate concentration is low in HSLA steels during austenite conditioning, especially at temperatures > 850 °C, so that the probability of detecting precipitates via APT is below 5%. Here, we demonstrate two encapsulation-based approaches that increase the precipitate concentration in the APT sample volume sufficiently to enable the analysis of sparse precipitates. The first method is based on metallographic etching and direct targeting of precipitates in the steel. A focused ion beam was used to mark precipitation sites. Encapsulation with nickel-phosphorus (Ni-P) enabled localized APT and increased the yield by a factor of 10. The second method relies on the chemical extraction of precipitates and subsequent encapsulation in a silicon oxide (SiOx) network at a very high particle density. Analysis of tips cut from the encapsulated particles increased the yield by a factor of >15. We discuss and compare the spatial and chemical accuracy obtained in the analysis of pure Nb-, Ti- and mixed Nb-Ti carbonitrides.