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Title: Performance study of charcoal-based radon reduction systems for ultraclean rare event detectors

Journal Article · · Journal of Instrumentation
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  2. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
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The continuous emanation of radon due to trace amounts of uranium and thorium in detector materials introduces radon to the active detection volume of low-background rare event search detectors. 222Rn produces a particularly problematic background in the physics region of interest by the "naked" beta decay of its 214Pb daughter nucleus. While charcoal-based adsorption traps are expected to be effective for radon reduction in auxiliary circulation loops that service the warm components of current ton-scale detectors at slow flow rates (0.5-2 SLPM), radon reduction in the entire circulation loop at high flow rates $$\mathcal{O}$$(100s SLPM) is necessary to reach high sensitivity in future generation experiments. In this article we explore radon dynamics with a charcoal-based radon reduction system in the main circulation loop of time projection chamber detectors. Here, we find that even for perfect radon traps, circulation speeds of 2,000 SLPM are needed to reduce radon concentration in a 10 ton detector by 90%. This is faster by a factor of four than the highest circulation speeds currently achieved in dark matter detectors. We further find that the effectiveness of vacuum swing adsorption systems, which have been employed very successfully at reducing atmospheric radon levels in clean-rooms, is limited by the intrinsic radon activity of the charcoal adsorbent in ultra-low radon environments. Adsorbents with significantly lower intrinsic radon activity than in currently available activated charcoals would be necessary to build effective vacuum swing adsorption systems operated at room temperature for rare event search experiments. If such VSA systems are cooled to about 190 K, this requirement relaxes drastically.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0019193; SC0015708; AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1869678
Journal Information:
Journal of Instrumentation, Vol. 16, Issue 07; ISSN 1748-0221
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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journal September 2018
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