Marie-Cécile Piro

Radon is an important source of radioactive background in experiments searching for rare decays and in the field of low-energy particle physics. Here, we report the first temperature-dependent study of radon adsorption on silver-exchanged zeolites from several commercial producers. Among the three tested zeolites, Ag-ETS-10 showed the best result. Hence, it was chosen for the further study of internal radioactivity and radon emanation, which are important characteristics of materials used in low-activity experiments. The important role of silver in radon adsorption is demonstrated by comparison of the silver-exchanged zeolites with their unexchanged counterparts. Furthermore, the temperature-dependent measurements showed that the enhancement of the radon adsorption upon the introduction of silver in zeolite occurs due to the increase of the heat of adsorption. This opens a new perspective for the search for highly efficient radon adsorbents.