Radioactivity safety regulations

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. 

Nuclear detection approaches that use radioactive isotojjic sources (e.g., Cf for spontaneous fission and asociated neutron emission or ° Co for gamma emission) will have to obtain state and federal hcenses to field the equipment and abide by apphcable health and safety regulations. The Hcensing process takes some time to put into place and may restrict the easy movement of the detection equipment to new locations. This impacts the abffity to rapidly re-locate equipment based up inteUigence estimates of the behavior of smugglers. The use of fixed pre-licensed sites can help to some extent. 

In this chapter, we begin by describing the laboratory facilities and equipment needed for biochemical and molecular biological work. This is followed by advice on safe working in the laboratory, and discussion of the safety regulations that usually apply in a biochemistry laboratory. We describe a range of common laboratory activities, but do not include some important topics, such as chromatography, electrophoresis and photometric methods, which are considered later in specific chapters. The chapter concludes with a description of radioactive methods, and advice about alternatives to the use of radioactivity. 

Additional safety regulations, which are not discussed here, apply to certain areas of work, notably the use of radioactive materials, genetically manipulated organisms, and pathogenic microorganisms. 

Despite the safety regulations, accidents have occurred with nuclear reactors and reprocessing plants, primarily due to mistakes of the operators. By these accidents parts of the radioactive inventory have entered the environment. Mainly gaseous fission products and aerosols have been emitted, but solutions have also been given off. In the Chernobyl accident, gaseous fission products and aerosols were transported through the air over large distances. Even molten particles from the reactor core were carried with the air over distances of several hundred kilometres. 

The analyser protection should comply with safety regulations, especially strict for hazardous areas, which involve protection of the workers, emergency actions, identification and handling of radioactive, toxic or inflammable products, protection against fire, control of the Industrial environment, etc. 

In a radioanalytical laboratory, a number of safety regulations must be strictly observed. The first step should always be to make a calculation of the expected activity it is very important because it determines the type of laboratory needed and governs the safety measures and the waste disposal. It should always be considered whether the conditions can be changed in order to reduce the radioactivity or whether a short-lived radionuclide can be used instead of one with a longer half-life. 

Radioactive substances — Transportation — Safety regulations. I. International Atomic Energy Agency. II. Series. 

The gel fixing and treatment procedures can be carried out in any suitably sized glass or plastic dish, even the plastic lids from autoclavable pipette tip racks. No special equipment is required, but care should be taken to handle and dispose of radioactive solutions according to the appropriate safety regulations. 

Radiopharmaceuticals are regulated both as medicinal products and as radioactive substances. Therefore, both medicine quality regulations (GMP) and safety regulations (nuclear energy legislation) are applicable. Radiopharmaceuticals must be handled (often aseptically) as quickly as possible, with shielding, to avoid unnecessary exposure to radiation. 

Radioactive Waste Regulation, Nuclear Safety Bureau Science and Technology Agency,... 

Examples of some radioactive isotopes used for fluidized bed tracking are shown in Table 7. As discussed e.g., by Seville et al. (1995) and Benton and Parker (1996), the scattering or absorption of the emitted radiation may lead to incorrect determination of tracer position. However, since the scattered rays have lower energy than the correct ones, by removing the scatter data one may avoid this problem. Application of radioactive particles as tracers is relatively easy and inexpensive, even for large fluidized bed plants. However, it may sometimes disturb the flow and definitely requires strict safety regulations during the mea-... 

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