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  • Radioisotopes used in analytical chemical instruments
    Janžekovič, Helena ; Križman, Milko
    Immediately after the discovery of radioactivity, radioactive materials become widely used in different types of research and application, and very often without any details of inventory of sources ... used. Inventory of sources in a country as well as the inventory of radioactive waste is a milestone of programmes related to the achievement of safety and security of sources. The Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration (SNSA), as the competent regulatory body in Slovenia, performed in the last years inspection programme related to ionising sources and radioactive waste which were not under a control in the past. Among other facilities laboratories were inspected. While most applications of ionising sources in such laboratories are well known, some applications are very rare and as a consequence also less known. As for example, calibration of gamma spectrometers which is preformed with calibration sources e.g. Am-241, Cs-137 and Co-60, is a typical well known use of radioactive sources. In the chemical laboratories analytical instruments using radioactive sources are electron capture detectors (ECD) used for gas chromatography with Ni-63. In addition, in liquid scintillation techniques applied in chemical laboratories the radioisotopes H-3, C-14, P-32,S-35 and Cr-51 are used commonly. But it is less known that in most of the liquid scintillation counters radioisotopes are installed for quenching control, as for example: Ba-133, Cs-137, Eu -152 and Ra-226. Some chemical detectors use Ni-63 or Am-241. It is also less known that radioisotopes in ion mobility spectrometry techniques are usually built in the instrument using these techniques. This chemical method is widely used nowadays. According to the knowledge of the authors this is the first published article giving overview over the instruments containing radioactive sources which are mentioned. Although instruments mentioned above are made user friendly, a proper warning sign for radiation is labelled rarely. This can easily result in overlooking the presence of radiation source. Radiation safety requirements should be discussed before any use of such instruments taken into account also maintenance procedure. As appropriate, the transport and shipment regulations should be considered, as well as the storage before a purchase and after a use of an instrument, taken into account the contemporary security procedures.
    Source: Proceedings [Elektronski vir] (Str. 1008.1-1008.8)
    Type of material - conference contribution
    Publish date - 2009
    Language - english
    COBISS.SI-ID - 561136

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