%0 Journal Article %D 2018 %T Study of radon reduction in gases for rare event search experiments %A K. Pushkin %A C. Akerlof %A D. Anbajagane %A J. Armstrong %A M. Arthurs %A Jacob Bringewatt %A T. Edberg %A C. Hall %A M. Lei %A R. Raymond %A M. Reh %A D. Saini %A A. Sander %A J. Schaefer %A D. Seymour %A N. Swanson %A Y. Wang %A W. Lorenzon %X
The noble elements, argon and xenon, are frequently employed as the target and event detector for weakly interacting particles such as neutrinos and Dark Matter. For such rare processes, background radiation must be carefully minimized. Radon provides one of the most significant contaminants since it is an inevitable product of trace amounts of natural uranium. To design a purification system for reducing such contamination, the adsorption characteristics of radon in nitrogen, argon, and xenon carrier gases on various types of charcoals with different adsorbing properties and intrinsic radioactive purities have been studied in the temperature range of 190-295 K at flow rates of 0.5 and 2 standard liters per minute. Essential performance parameters for the various charcoals include the average breakthrough times (