Indoor environment factor · measured in Bq/m³
Radon progeny
Part of: Radon
Also: radon daughters, radon decay products, radon progeny, potential alpha energy concentration
The short-lived radioactive elements formed when radon decays — polonium, lead and bismuth isotopes. Unlike radon itself they are solid, so they attach to airborne particles and to surfaces, and it is they, not the gas, that deliver the dose to the lung.
What it is
Radon is a noble gas: inhaled, most of it is breathed out again before it decays. Its progeny behave completely differently. They are metals, formed in mid-air, and they immediately attach themselves to whatever is available — an airborne particle, a wall, a lung lining. Deposited in the airway, they emit alpha particles at close range into the cells there, and that is where essentially the whole radiological dose comes from.
This changes how the exposure should be read. The dose depends not only on how much gas is present but on what fraction of the progeny is attached to particles and how large those particles are, which is why a smoky or dusty room converts the same gas concentration into a different dose.
Measurement follows the same split. Progeny can be measured directly as potential alpha energy concentration, but routine surveys measure the gas and apply an assumed equilibrium factor.
What the studies report
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air conditioning | the dose values are computed, not measured | university auditorium occupants · auditorium | measurement of radon and its short-lived progeny (attached and unattached fractions) with indoor air parameters in a university auditorium in Lublin, Poland, under different air-conditioning operating modes and recirculation rates | F-0642 The influence of air conditioning changes on the effective d… (2016) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Identifiers
- MeSH
- D017687
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Radon progeny. Coridum Knowledge G-0194, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0194/