Producing an Inexpensive Nuclear Etching-Unit and Testing Its Performance

Since the inhalation of radon and radon progenies may cause serious health risks such as increase in the incidence of lung cancer, it is important to determine indoor radon concentrations. in the present study, the performance of the etching unit (track-matic), an automatic bath processing appliance for cr-39 nuclear track detectors that we designed as an alternative to conventional radobath etching unit, was examined. indoor radon measurements were performed for a 6-weeks period by using cr-39 detectors, which were placed in 10 measurement points in couples at the süleyman demirel university campus. at the end of the measurement period the cr-39 detectors were collected and the counting process of alpha traces (recorded by the detectors) were fulfilled in the health physics laboratory of sarayköy nuclear research and training center (sanaem) in ankara. at the stage of making the recorded alpha traces visible, for all the detector couples obtained from the measurement points, the film processing of one detector was performed by using the conventional radobath etching unit in sanaem laboratory and the bath process of the other cr-39 detector was performed by our device. then the results of the analyses were compared to each other. within the limitations of this study it may be concluded that, the track-matic device that we developed, which is approximately 65 times more economical than the current film processing unit radobath, can be used for chemical etching process of cr-39 detectors.