Nathan Boyle, a current Purdue PhD student in Taleyarkhan’s group, presented the paper in early July.

Titled “Detection of Radon-Progeny and Other Alpha-Emitting Radionuclides in Air Using Tensioned Metastable Fluid Detectors”, the topic focuses on a method to collect radon-bearing air in one to two minutes in any environment and provide reliable readings within an hour. Currently, no such method with this level of efficiency exists.

Most households are detected for radon by using a $25 charcoal canister that homeowners can purchase from any home improvement store. The canister is placed in the home for about a week, then sent out to a lab for assessment. The canister can only detect radon during that particular monitoring period, but according to Taleyarkhan, “radon in homes can come in at any time and in unpredictable ways.”

Radon is a colorless, odorless radioactive gas found worldwide that is emitted from the ground and enclosures such as walls or roofs. When radon decays, it produces radionuclides. Breathing in radon results in these radionuclides becoming stuck in lung tissue. More than 22,000 lung cancer deaths each year in the United States are attributed to breathing in radon in homes, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This number is only second to lung cancer deaths caused by smoking.

Reliable, online detectors such as a smoke or carbon monoxide detectors, are available, but are cost prohibitive for most homeowners with a price tag of between $8,000 to more than $25,000, explained the professor.

“Our Purdue Engineering technology is unique” because it uses a novel sensor technology,” said Taleyarkhan. His team has been developing this technology for combating nuclear terrorism but recently adapted it for collecting radon. “We believe we are close to receiving U.S. certification for commercializing this much-needed technology via Sagamore Adams Laboratories, LLC.” Sagamore is a small venture capital firm in Chicago that is in collaboration with Purdue Research Foundation. Taleyarkhan serves as Chief Technology Officer for the company.

Rounding out the authors of the Best Paper Award submission along with Taleyarkhan and Boyle are: Dr. Brian Archambault, past Purdue PhD student and current Manager of Technology Development at Sagamore Adams; Alex Hagen, a current Purdue PhD student; and Christopher Meert, a 2017 Purdue Nuclear Engineering graduate.

I-Cone 25 is the 25^th in an annual international series of nuclear engineering-relevant conferences sponsored by the American Society of Mechanical Engineering (ASME) – Nuclear Division, Chinese Nuclear Society (CNS), and Japan Society of Mechanical Engineering (JSME).