Instrument for measuring levels of concentration of tritium and tritium oxides in air

摘要

An instrument for measuring levels of concentration of tritium and tritium oxides in environmental air includes a scintillation detector, such as a photomultiplier, and a controlled device for exposing scintillators to the detector in succession. Air being monitored is passed over the scintillators. A thermoelectric device is used to cool and warm one of the scintillators for condensing air moisture onto its surface and for evaporating moisture from it, the count rate being measured in both instances. The other scintillator is a reference scintillator, the count rate from which is also measured, and a measurement is taken with neither of the scintillators exposed to the scintillation detector. The concentration levels of tritium and tritium oxides are computed from the set of measurements.