The scope of ISO 16659 series is to provide different test methods aiming at assessing the efficiency of radioactive iodine traps in ventilation systems of nuclear facilities. The ISO 16659 series deals with iodine traps containing a solid sorbent — mainly activated and impregnated charcoal, the most common solid iodine sorbents used in the ventilation systems of nuclear facilities — as well as other sorbents for special conditions (e.g. high temperature zeolites).

The scope of this document is to provide general and common requirements for the different test methods for industrial nuclear facilities. The different methods will be described in other specific parts of ISO 16659 series. Nuclear medicine applications are excluded from the scope of ISO 16659 series.

In principle, ISO 16659 series is used mainly for filtering radioactive iodine, but other radioactive gases can also be trapped together with iodine. In such a case, some specificity may have to be adapted for these other radioactive gases in specific parts of ISO 16659 series.

This document describes the main general requirements in order to check in situ the efficiency of the iodine traps, according to test conditions that are proposed to be as reproducible as possible.