Development of a new aerosol monitoring system and its application in Fukushima nuclear accident related aerosol radioactivity measurement at the CTBT radionuclide station in Sidney of Canada

A high volume aerosol sampler ("Grey Owl") has been designed and developed at the Radiation Protection Bureau, Health Canada. Its design guidance is based on the need for a low operational cost and reliable sampler to provide daily aerosol monitoring samples that can be used as reference samples for radiological studies. It has been developed to provide a constant air flow rate at low pressure drops (∼3 kPa for a day sampling) with variations of less than ±1% of the full scale flow rate. Its energy consumption is only about 1.5 kW for a filter sampling over 22,000 standard cubic meter of air. It has been demonstrated in this Fukushima nuclear accident related aerosol radioactivity monitoring study at Sidney station, B.C. that the sampler is robust and reliable. The results provided by the new monitoring system have been used to support decision-making in Canada during an emergency response.

► A new high volume aerosol sampler ("Grey Owl") has been developed in this study.
► It operates at low pressure drops with low energy consumption.
► The variation of air flow rate is less than ±1% of the full scale.
► Fukushima accident nuclide monitoring at Sidney shows that it is robust and reliable.