Radioactive substances precautions

Detailed precautions for handling radioactive substances will be dictated by the nature and quantity of isotope and the likely level of exposure. Thus for some materials laboratory coats and gloves may be adequate for others a fully enclosed suit and respirator may be more appropriate. Some general precautions are listed in Table 10.6. 

Caution Handle all radioactive substances according to the radiation safety regulations instituted at each facility approved to handle such materials. Use adequate precautions to protect personal safety and the environment. Dispose of radioactive waste only by following approved guidelines. 

CHEMICAL KINETICS RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES (General Precautions)... 

The beneficial use of radiation is one of the best examples of how careful characterization of the hazard is essential for its safe use. A radioactive substance can be safely stored or transported if appropriately contained. Depending on the characteristics of the radioactive material, it can be safely handled by using appropriate shielding and safety precautions. Laboratory workers usually wear special badges that quantify radiation exposure to ensure that predetermined levels of exposure, which are considered safe, are not exceeded. Unfortunately, after more than 50 years, society has not yet been able to design and implement a safe way to dispose of radioactive waste. The hazardous properties of radiation are explored further in a subsequent chapter. 

Very little work has been carried out on radiochemical derivatization for analysis of trace amounts of materials. The technique has the advantage of being both selective and sensitive. Die main advantage is that the sample background does not cause interference in the detection as it does in most other methods and which necessitates some degree of clean-up. Also, the reactions used are those for normal derivatization procedures, the only difference being that the reagent is radiolabeled and that appropriate precautions are required for radioactive substances. The few methods described below illustrate the application of this technique. 

In the early years of working with radioactive substances, no one understood the dangers of exposure to radiation or took the precautions we take today to minimize exposure. On July 4,1934, Marie Curie succumbed to a lifetime of radiation poisoning. 

It is necessary to use suitable precautions in working with radioactive substances. The chosen protocol is based on an understanding of the effects of radiation, dosage levels and "tolerable levels," the way in which radiation is detected and measured, and the basic precepts of radiation safety. 

This chapter has focused on the properties of elements that exhibit radioactivity. Because radioactivity can have harmful effects on human health, very stringent experimental procedures and precautions are required when imdertaking experiments on radioactive materials. As such, we typically do not have experiments involving radioactive substances in general chemistry laboratories. We can nevertheless ponder the design of some hypothetical experiments that would allow us to explore some of the properties of radium, which was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. 

Some special points arise from the nature of the radioactive parent substance radium and the daughter radon, which is an alpha-emitting inert gas. Precautions must be taken when sampling to prevent the gas escaping from the water prior to measurement and, on the other hand, to prevent its... 

Quantitative evaluation of spot and band chromatograms by localisation, scraping off, elution with ethanol and photometric determination with the help of the dipyridyl-iron reaction, has been the method most used (cf. Fig. e in Plate II). The easily reduced substances are about 97—100% recovered in the separation operation [8, 74, 111, 131] provided all precautions are respected. Vitamin E-compounds have been thus determined in various materials, both naturally occurring and synthetic. The active substance can also be determined colorimetrically in the eluate by using bathophenanthroline (2.5 times the extinction obtained with dipyridyl-iron) and with other physicochemical methods like spectrofluorometry (at least 0.01 fxg/ml) or with the liquid scintillation counter in the case of radioactive compounds [145]. 

However, Na is very chemically reactive substance, which requires special precautions to be taken when it used as a reactor coolant. Therefore, for improved reactor safety, a secondary Na loop is utilized, which acts as a buffer between the radioactive Na—reactor coolant in the primary loop and the water/steam in the third loop—a steam Rankine power cycle. 

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