Liquid scintillation materials

Established Exemption Levels. NRC s radiation protection standards in 10 CFR Part 20 (NRC, 1991) include limits on concentrations or annual releases of radionuclides for unrestricted discharge into sanitary sewer systems, except any excreta from individuals undergoing medical treatment with radioactive material are exempt from the limits. These regulations also include an exemption for land disposal of liquid scintillation materials and animal carcasses that contain 2 kBq g 1 (0.05 pCi g-1) or less of 3H or 14C, although the exempted scintillation materials must be managed in accordance with RCRA requirements due to the presence of toluene. 

Liquid scintillation counting is by far the most common method of detection and quantitation of -emission (12). This technique involves the conversion of the emitted P-radiation into light by a solution of a mixture of fluorescent materials or fluors, called the Hquid scintillation cocktail. The sensitive detection of this light is affected by a pair of matched photomultiplier tubes (see Photodetectors) in the dark chamber. This signal is amplified, measured, and recorded by the Hquid scintillation counter. Efficiencies of detection are typically 25—60% for tritium >90% for and P and... 

These two methods produce different release profiles in vitro. Figure 5 demonstrates the release kinetics of BCNU from wafers loaded with 2.5% BCNU pressed from materials produced using these two methods. The wafers containing tritiated BCNU were placed into beakers containing 200-ml aliquots of 0.1 M phosphate buffer, pH 7.4, which were placed in a shaking water bath maintained at 37 C. The shaking rate was 20 cycles/min to avoid mechanical disruption of the wafers. The supernatant fluid was sampled periodically, and the BCNU released was determined by liquid scintillation spectrometry. The BCNU was completely released from the wafers prepared by the trituration method within the first 72 hr, whereas it took just about twice as long for the BCNU to be released from wafers... 

Guilmette RA, Bay AS. 1981. Radio assays of americium or curium in biological material by isoctyl acid phosphate solvent extraction and a liquid scintillation counting. Anal Chem 53 2351-2354. 

The suppression and recovery of protein synthesis from DTT treatment (without cycloheximide treatment) can be monitored via metabolic pulse radiolabeling of cell cultures using [35S]-methionine and subsequent determination of radiolabeled protein content either by SDS-PAGE/ phosphor-imager analysis or liquid scintillation of tricholoroacetic acid insoluble material (Stephens et al., 2005). 

C-labelled cholesterol was used to test the recovery of 5-100 pg of faecal sterols from seawater (labelled coprostanol not being available). The radioactivity of the samples and eluates was measured by a two-channel liquid scintillation counter. Percentage recovery was calculated on the basis of the amount of labeled material recovered in the acetone eluant. The results indicate that column extraction efficiency is not adversely affected by the salinity of the water samples, i.e., in the range 95-97%. 

Materials Required Schwartz-Mann-H3 Cortisol RIA-Kit liquid scintillation counter, centrifuge. 

Weak beta radiation and alpha particles often cannot penetrate the covering material but the use of a scintillant, which, together with the sample, will dissolve in a suitable solvent, enables a similar technique to be used. Liquid scintillation counters usually consist of two light-shielded photomultiplier... 

The combination of the picosecond single electron bunch with streak cameras, independently developed in 1979 at Argonne National Laboratory [55] and at University of Tokyo by us [56], enabled the very high time resolution for emission spectroscopy. The research fields have been extended to organic materials such as liquid scintillators [55-57], polymer systems [58], and pure organic solvents [59]. The kinetics of the geminate ion recombination were studied [55,57,59]. 

All methods of radiometric analysis involve, of course, the use. of various radiation detection devices, The devices available for measuring radioactivity will vary with the types of radiations emitted by the radioisotope and the kinds of radioactive material. Ionization chambers are used for gases Geiger-Miiller and proportional counters for solids liquid scintillation counters for liquids and solutions and solid crystal or semi-conductor detector scintillation counters for liquids and solids emitting high-energy radiations. Each device can be adopted to detect and measure radioactive material in another state, e.g., solids can be assayed in an ionization chamber. The radiations interact with the detector to produce a signal,... 

Low-Level Waste Low-level waste (LLW) consists of contaminated dry trash, paper, plastics, protective clothing, organic liquids such as liquid scintillation samples, and the like. LLW is produced by any facility that handles radioactive materials such as nuclear power plants, medical facilities, colleges, and so forth. In the United States, commercial LLW is sent to one of three disposal sites (Barnwell, South Carolina, Richland, Washington, and Clive, Utah). Due to the limited size of these sites (and similar disposal sites through the world) and steeply escalating costs for waste disposal, the primary goal of LLW treatment prior to disposal is volume reduction, either by incineration or compaction, followed... 

There are three common types of organic scintillator. The first type is a pure crystalline material, such as anthracene. The second type, the liquid scintillator, is the solution of an organic scintillator in an organic liquid, such as a solution of p-terphenyl in toluene ( 3 g solute/L solution). The third type is the solution of an organic scintillator, such as p-terphenyl, in a solid plastic, such as polystyrene. 

The extraction of two typical agricultural products from environmental matrices were chosen as examples for the operation of this system. Diuron, a phenylmethylurea, was freshly spiked onto Tama soil. This soil was characterized and shown to have 3.1% organic material and 14 % clay fraction. In addition, a phenyl metabolite of NUSTAR, a systemic fungicide, on wheat previously unextractable by SFE was extracted. The wheat sample was not classified for its chemical composition. Both samples were treated with radiolabeled compounds (E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, Du Pont Agricultural Products, Wilmington, DE) and extraction results are from liquid scintillation counting of the sample extract. Chromatographic evaluation of the Diuron from soil extracts has previously been published (2). 

The mixture was then treated with 5 ml of alkaline hydroxyl-amine reagent ( 20 ml hydroxylamine hydrochloride titrated to pH 13 with 3.5M NaOH ) for 5 min and the protein precipitated with 5% trichloroacetic acid. After centrifuging ( 5000 g ) for 5 min the supernatant was carefully decanted and the precipitate washed twice with 10-ml aliquots of absolute ethanol. The material was then dissolved in 1 ml, of 0.2M NaOH, mixed with 10 ml of Insta-gel scintillator ( Packard Instrument (Pty) Ltd.), and the radioactivity counted in a Packard Tri Carb Liquid Scintillation Spectrometer. 

Exempt Radioactive Wastes. The radioactive waste classification system in the United States does not include a general class of exempt waste (see Table 1.1). Rather, many products and materials that contain small amounts of radionuclides (e.g., specified consumer products, liquid scintillation counters containing 3H and 14C) have been exempted from requirements for use or disposal as radioactive material on a case-by-case basis. The various exemption levels are intended to correspond to low doses to the public, especially compared with dose limits in radiation protection standards for the public or doses due to natural background radiation. However, the exemption levels are not based on a particular dose, and potential doses to the public resulting from use or disposal of the exempt products and materials vary widely. 

Sampling and Measurements. The determination of dissolved actinide concentration was started a week after the preparation of solutions and continued periodically for several months until the solubility equilibrium in each solution was attained. Some solutions, in which the solubilities of americium or plutonium were relatively high, were spectrophotometrically analyzed to ascertain the chemical state of dissolved species. For each sample, 0.2 to 1.0 mL of solution was filtered with a Millex-22 syringe filter (0.22 pm pore size) and the actinide concentration determined in a liquid scintillation counter. After filtration with a Millex-22, randomly chosen sample solutions were further filtered with various ultrafilters of different pore sizes in order to determine if different types of filtration would affect the measured concentration. The chemical stability of dissolved species was examined with respect to sorption on surfaces of experimental vials and of filters. The experiment was performed as follows the solution filtered by a Millex-22 was put into a polyethylene vial, stored one day, filtered with a new filter of the same pore size and put into another polyethylene vial. This procedure was repeated twice with two new polyethylene vials and the activities of filtrates were compared. The ultrafiltration was carried out by centrifugation with an appropriate filter holder. The results show that the dissolved species in solution after filtration with Millex-22 (0.22 ym) do not sorb on surfaces of experimental materials and that the actinide concentration is not appreciably changed with decreasing pore size of ultrafilters. The pore size of a filter is estimated from its given Dalton number on the basis of a hardsphere model used in the previous work (20). 

Centrifugation alone is not sufficient to separate Np solid material from the solution (j) ). Thus, the Np solution concentrations and oxidation state analyses were determined from aliquots filtered through approximately 1.8 nm pore-size Centriflo membrane cones (Amicon Corp., Lexington, MA). Each filter cone was pretreated with an initial aliquot of the suspension to be filtered. Tests using successive filtration confirmed that no significant amounts of Np were being sorbed by the filter cones. The solutions were alpha counted by liquid scintillation techniques. Major cations in the solutions were determined by inductively coupled plasma spectrometry (ICP) analyses. 

In the stage of drag discovery, LC/MS-MS analytics is the method of choice to quantify the unbound drag concentration. The sensitivity can be increased by the use of radiolabeled substance. But, the radiochemical purity, isotope decay, if not 14C-label is used as well a sufficient specific activity must be taken into consideration (Wright et al. 1996). The concentrations of radioactivity in bound and unbound fraction are measured by liquid scintillation counting. The use of radiolabeled material allows easily examination of the potential of adsorption. However, the identity of the drag in unbound fraction should additionally be veri-... 

Cell harvesters were developed to capture multiple samples of cells on membrane filters, wash away unincorporated isotopes, and prepare samples for liquid scintillation counting on special equipment developed to process and count multiple samples. Despite miniaturization and improvements in efficiency of this technique, the disadvantages of multiple liquid handling steps and increasing costs for disposal of radioactive waste materials severely limit its usefulness. Although specific applications require measuring DNA synthesis as a marker for cell proliferation, much better choices are available for detecting viable cell number for HTS. 

Solid Scintillation Counting of f3 Emissions. To avoid some of the problems associated with liquid scintillation counting, a method has been developed for measuring /T radioactivity by scintillation of solid samples. Liquid samples containing the radioactive material to be counted are placed in small... 

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