Qingdao Environmental Monitoring Center Opens 340 Nuclear Radiation Inspection Instruments to the Public

Recently, the Qingdao City Environmental Monitoring Center opened to the public for the first time. In the 37 years, more than 340 instruments have been unveiled.

The "minimum version" of the instrument was responding to emergencies. At a laboratory on the third floor of the Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center, the reporter saw another "reduced version" of the gas chromatograph, which was only the size of a shoe box. “This is an ultra-fast, portable gas chromatograph that can only be used to detect the presence of harmful substances such as benzene series in gases, and the detection speed is faster,” explains the instructor.

The test equipment in this laboratory is small, but the size of the microwave oven is the largest. According to explainers, the instruments in this laboratory are prepared to deal with emergencies such as explosions and gas leaks in petrochemical plants and chemical plants.

In this laboratory, visitors also became interested in several stainless steel “kettles”. The explainer said that these “kettles” are actually gas sampling tanks and they look nothing special, but they have a coating of inert materials that will not adsorb on the inner layer after the gas enters, nor will they react chemically with the inner layer. The authenticity of the absorbed gas sample can be guaranteed.

Gas samples were found in the "glass pencil" on the fourth floor of the Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center. The reporter saw a copier-sized white instrument called the gas chromatograph. According to explainers, this instrument can mainly detect benzene series, nitrobenzenes, and turpentine in emergency water and gas samples. “There is a role that is closely related to our lives. It is possible to detect formaldehyde levels in the room that are not excessive.” Explains the instructor. “The quality of the indoor environment of some athletes staying at the hotel during the Olympics is used to detect it; Sudi Before the start of the Man Cup, we also used it to test the indoor air quality of Guoxin Stadium."

How to collect gas samples? The instructor took out a glass sampling tube, which was thinner than the pencil and the middle section was black.

"The black stuff is activated carbon. When sampling, we plug the sampling tube into the pump so that the gas is sucked into the sampling tube and then absorbed by the activated charcoal," the presenter explained.

The day of the open day when the radiation measuring instruments are to be operated at ultra-low temperatures, the most attention paid to visitors is the radiation laboratory. After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, the Qingdao Environmental Protection Agency implemented real-time continuous monitoring of the radiation environment conditions in the island city, and the “main battlefield” monitored was the laboratory.

This is a "gamma spectrometer" imported from the United States. This instrument can detect common nuclides in soil, water, and aerosol samples. The instructor opened the lid on the instrument. The reporter found that the inner wall had a layer of lead about 10 cm thick. "The radioactivity of radionuclides is very strong. Lead blocks can effectively block radiation," the instructor said.

There is a gas tank next to the "gamma spectrometer." "This is ammonia gas, which is mainly used to cool the instrument." The explainer told reporters that the stainless steel detectors in the instrument must operate at cryogenic temperatures of minus one hundred degrees Celsius. Therefore, before conducting the exploration, they must first Use ammonia to cool the instrument for 6 hours.