Radioisotope laboratories

Certain operations require that the workspace be at a lower pressure than surrounding workspaces, e.g., radioisotope laboratories. In these cases, the exhaust flow rate should exceed the supply flow rate, but this excess should he within 10%. The additional resistance resulting from this imbalance should be considered in the design of the exhaust system, specifically in the selection of exhaust fans. 

The recording of production data will make it necessary to bring batch documentation into the radioisotope laboratory. Hence, it is important to have routines that minimize the risk for radioactive contamination of the documents and to ensure that any contaminated documents will not leave the controlled area. Today, the use of computers instead of paper documents in the laboratory leaves most of the paperwork outside the controlled area. 

R. A. Faires, G. G. J. Boswell, Radioisotope Laboratory Techniques, 4th ed., Butterworths, London, 1981... 

The design of the laboratories should take into accountthe suitability of construction materials, prevention of fumes, and ventilation. Separate air-handling units and other provisions are needed for biological, microbiological, and radioisotope laboratories. 

R. A. Fares and B. H. Parks, Radioisotope Laboratory Techniques, Buttcrworth, 1973. 

Elementary Practical Radiochemistry (Ladd and Lee 1964) contains 20 brief experiments that illustrate detection techniques such as measurement of ingrowth and decay, as well as ion exchange, extraction, and coprecipitation. The text Radioisotope Laboratory Techniques (Faires and Boswell 1981) primarily addresses nuclear physics, radionuclide production, and counting techniques. It briefly mentions laboratory apparatus but omits discussion of separation techniques. 

Many of the laboratory techniques that are recommended or required to be used in radioisotope laboratories are simply an extension of good laboratory practices, and are also applicable to research with biological or chemical hazards. These techniques are primarily designed to help minimize exposure to both internal and external radiation in order to reach the goal of ALARA, exposure as low as readily achievable (see Section 13.7). 

Radiotoxicity of isotope Good chemical laboratory Radioisotope laboratory High-level laboratory... 

Ionizing radiation Exposure, genetic and somatic effect Nuclear reactor, accelerator, cyclotron, research laboratories. X-ray laboratories, radioisotope laboratories NRC 10 CFR 19, 20, 34, OSHA 29 CFR 1910.96, state laws... 

In thermoluminescence dating, a sample of the material is heated, and the light emitted by the sample as a result of the de-excitations of the electrons or holes that are freed from the traps at luminescence centers is measured providing a measure of the trap population density. This signal is compared with one obtained from the same sample after a laboratory irradiation of known dose. The annual dose rate for the clay is calculated from determined concentrations of radioisotopes in the material and assumed or measured environmental radiation intensities. 

X-ray fluorescence, mass spectroscopy, emission spectrography, and ion-conductive plasma—atomic emission spectroscopy (icp—aes) are used in specialized laboratories equipped for handling radioisotopes with these instmments. 

The use of radioactive tracers was pioneered by Georg von Hevesy, a Hungarian physical chemist, who received the Nobel Prize in 1943 for his work on radioactive indicators (1). Radioisotopes have become indispensable components of most medical and life science research strategies, and in addition the technology is the basis for numerous industries focused on the production and detection of radioactive tracers. Thousands of radioactive tracers have been synthesized and are commercially available. These are used worldwide in tens of thousands of research laboratories. 

It is possible for complex metals ions that are adsorbed onto very small particles of clay to migrate as metal-clay particles. Laboratory experiments found that radioisotope-clay particles at a low salinity were retained in a sand core, but passed through it at a high salinity.44 Clay-metal particles would not be expected to travel long distances in deep-well reservoir rocks because the pores would be too small. 

The curves in Figure 10 were drawn from a composite of many observations made in the course of metabolic studies including radioisotopes of yttrium and the 14 lanthanide elements administered as chlorides. These experiments were performed at the Crocker Laboratory, University of California, in the years 1943 to 1957 under the general direction of J. G. Hamilton, K. G. Scott, and P. W. Durbin. Some of the information was presented in Laboratory Progress Reports, but much is unpublished. 

When cells are suspended in a biological fluid or culture medium, both serum proteins and cells interact with the surface substrate. Serum protein adsorption behavior on SAMs has been examined with various analytical methods, including SPR [58-61], ellipsometry [13, 62, 63], and quartz QCM [64—66]. These methods allow in situ, highly sensitive detection of protein adsorption without any fluorescence or radioisotope labeling. SPR and QCM are compatible with SAMs that comprise alkanethiols. In our laboratory, we employed SPR to monitor protein adsorption on SAMs. 

As a result of these inconsistencies, the very same amino acid extracts that had been used to produce the contentious AAR dates were independently dated by the AMS method at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford (OxA numbers Bada et al., 1984) and the NSF Accelerator Facility for Radioisotope Analysis, University of Arizona, Tucson (AA numbers). 

At Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico the Analytical Chemistry Group (C-AAC) supports the Pu-238 Heat Source Project that fabricates heat sources for use in the space industry. These heat sources have been used on NASA s deep-space probes and on instruments exploring the surface of Mars. The chemical and isotopic purity of the heat sources are critically controlled to ensure dependable service. The Radiochemistry Task Area performs analyses of the heat source material for four radioisotopes americium-241, plutonium-238, neptunium-237, and uranium-235. 

Atoms that have the same atomic number, and hence are the same element, but have different masses are known as isotopes. Radioisotopes, or more correctly, radionuclides spontaneously and continuously emit characteristic types of radiation. They are particularly useful in analytical biochemistry, the unique nature of the radiation providing the basis for many specific and sensitive laboratory methods (Table 5.1). 

There are many regulations regarding the handling and disposal of radioisotopes and these must be fully understood and observed when setting up a radioisotope facility. The hazards must be fully assessed and the laboratory must be equipped and approved for the intended applications. All manipulations must be assessed for specific hazards and standard operating procedures (SOPs) fully implemented. 

This assay method (RIPA) is used primarily in research. It is too technically demanding for routine use in clinical laboratories. HIV is cultured in radio-labeled cells, or viral proteins are directly labeled with a radioisotope. The virus is disrupted and then exposed to the test specimen. Specific antigen-antibody complexes are concentrated and isolated by immunoprecipitation. After exten-... 

Many scientists would argue that the flexibility and reliability of SPA more than offset these potential disadvantages, and SPA is still in wide use for HTS today. Nevertheless, methods that generate fluorescent and luminescent signals without radioisotopes have become favorites in some HTS laboratories. These fluorescence- and luminescence-based methods,... 

There are no major commercial uses for curium because of the extremely small amount produced. In the future, the most important use of curium may be to provide the power for small, compact thermoelectric sources of electricity, by generating heat through the nuclear decay of radioisotope curium-241. These small, efficient power sources can be used in individual homes or remote regions to provide electricity to areas that cannot secure it from other sources. It could also be used as a source of electricity in spacecraft. However, today curium s main use is for basic scientific laboratory research. 

The radioisotopes of einsteinium are highly unstable and radioactive. The small amount of the element and its compounds produced are not likely to be available in most laboratories. Thus, they do not pose any general hazard except in the case of scientists working with nuclear materials who must take precautions in handling exotic elements. 

---