Description du projet :
Radon is a natural radioactive gas found in uranium‐rich and permeable soils. It escapes from the ground
into the air and accumulates in buildings. When inhaled, radioactive radon progenies settle in the lungs and
become a direct cause of lung cancer. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking,
and more than one in ten cases are linked to radon: worldwide, this affects hundreds of thousands of
people every year. In January 2018 the EU Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom entered into force in the EU
and in Switzerland. The legal limits for indoor radon concentration have been lowered by a factor of 10 for
workplaces and by a factor of 3 for schools and homes. In Europe, millions of buildings are not compliant
and need radon mitigation. There are a number of situations in which invasive mitigation through building
renovation is highly impractical, or flat impossible: for example, in historical buildings or in densely
populated urban environments. In historical buildings it is often the case that HVAC systems are not
present and cannot be installed. For these cases we have been working on an innovative solution, which
tackles directly the radioactive dose to the lung (i.e. the actual cause of cancer) rather than the radon
concentration. This solution is based on existing devices designed for indoor air quality with improved
filters, coupled to our RaDoM (Radon Dose Monitor) technology, which provides a direct assessment of the
dose to the lung in real-time.
Equipe de recherche au sein de la HES-SO:
Pallada Stavroula
Partenaires professionnels: Alessandro Curioni, BAQ Sarl (Suisse); Stefano Romano, BAQ Sarl (Suisse)
Montant global du projet: 15'000 CHF
Statut: En cours
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