Re: Electric chairs in our homes?

[William Kolb <William.Kolb@faa.dot.gov>]

According to William W. Nazaroff and Anthony V. Nero, Jr.(eds., Radon and Its
Decay Products in Indoor Air, New York, John Wiley & Sons. 1988), airborne
particulates seem to act as a barrier and the dose to the lungs remains
virtually unchanged by air filtering and electrostatic precipitators.  So who's
right here?

bill
william.kolb@faa.dot.gov

_______________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Electric chairs in our homes?
From:    Bruce.Pickett@PSS.Boeing.com at Internet
Date:    2/12/98  10:22 AM

The following short article appears on page 45 of the March 1998 issue
of Popular Science magazine, published by Times Mirror Magazines.

THE FUTURE OF radon removal may be as simple as powering up your
living room. In tests conducted under a grant from the EPA, SR Environmental of
Amherst, New York, has shown that electrically charging a few furniture
surfaces continuously can eliminate as much as 90 percent of radon
particles circulating in a large room.Taking advantage of radon particles'
affinity for highly charged surfaces, scientists attached a 10-kilovolt power
supply to various pieces of furniture -- bookcases, sofas, tables. After about 3
hours, they found the airborne concentration of radon had decreased 76 to 90
percent, depending on how large a surface area was charged.The charged
surfaces also attracted other pollutants, such as pollen,
spores, cigarette smoke, and dust. That's good for clearing the air, but
bad for occupants who use the furniture. The company is now attempting
to figure out how to either repeatedly clean these surfaces or create a
single collection plate -- say, a bookcase -- with a surface area large
enough to be effective.Radon, a naturally occurring radioactive gas, is the
second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. The gas emanates from
trace amounts of radium found in soil underneath or adjacent to many homes.
The gas itself doesn't do the damage; rather, small particles emitted
from its decay seep through cracks or porous building materials and are
inhaled.SR Environmental is now conducting more studies to determine whether
the system is feasible. One benefit: It would cost about $400, half that of
the traditional method of subslab piping to remove radon. -- Gunjan
Sinha