Why is radioactive isotopes dangerous

Nuclear radiation can ionise chemicals within a body, which changes the way the cells behave. It can also deposit large amounts of energy into the body, which can damage or destroy cells completely.

Some of the effects that radiation has on a human body are shown below. The risk associated with radioactive materials depends on the amount of exposure. Being exposed to highly radioactive materials or being exposed to radioactive materials for long periods of time or on a regular basis increases the dose received which, in turn, increases the risk.

Given that radioactive materials are hazardous, certain precautions can be taken to reduce the risk of using radioactive sources. These include:. The effects of radiation on the human body Radioactive materials are hazardous. Radioactive atoms give off one or more of these types of radiation to reach a more stable state. Additionally, each type of radiation has different properties that affect how we can detect it and how it can affect us. Neutrons are neutral particles with no electrical charge that can travel great distances in the air.

Another feature of each radionuclide is its half-life. Half-life is the length of time it takes for half of the radioactive atoms of a specific radionuclide to decay. A good rule of thumb is that, after seven half-lives, you will have less than one percent of the original amount of radiation. Depending on the radionuclide, this process could be fast or take a very long time — radioactive half-lives can range from milliseconds to hours, days, sometimes millions of years.

Then 6, then 3, then 1, until eventually, all of the radioactive atoms in that population will reach their more stable state. Some radionuclides go through a series of transformations before they reach a stable state. For example, uranium ultimately transforms into a stable atom of lead.

But in the process, several types of radioactive atoms are generated. This is called a decay chain. When uranium decays, it produces several isotopes of:. As a result of this natural process, all of these radioactive atoms are part of our natural environment. Certain radioactive nuclei emit alpha particles. Alpha particles generally carry more energy than gamma or beta particles , and deposit that energy very quickly while passing through tissue.

Alpha particles can be stopped by a thin layer of light material, such as a sheet of paper, and cannot penetrate the outer, dead layer of skin. Therefore, they do not damage living tissue when outside the body. When alpha-emitting atoms are inhaled or swallowed, however, they are especially damaging because they transfer relatively large amounts of ionizing energy to living cells.

See also beta particle , gamma ray , neutron , x-ray. Atom — The smallest particle of an element that can enter into a chemical reaction. Beta Particles — Electrons ejected from the nucleus of a decaying atom. Although they can be stopped by a thin sheet of aluminum, beta particles can penetrate the dead skin layer, potentially causing burns. They can pose a serious direct or external radiation threat and can be lethal depending on the amount received.

They also pose a serious internal radiation threat if beta-emitting atoms are ingested or inhaled. See also alpha particle , gamma ray , neutron , x-ray.

Decay Chain Decay Series — The series of decays that certain radioisotopes go through before reaching a stable form. For example, the decay chain that begins with uranium U ends in lead Pb , after forming isotopes, such as uranium U , thorium Th , radium Ra , and radon Rn Gamma Rays — High-energy electromagnetic radiation emitted by certain radionuclides when their nuclei transition from a higher to a lower energy state.

These rays have high energy and a short wave length. As indicated above, the world's supply of Mo comes from just six reactors, five of which are over 50 years old. The Canadian and Netherlands reactors required major repairs over and were out of action for some time.

Osiris was due to shut down in but apparently continued to at least An increasing supply shortfall of technetium was forecast from , and the IAEA encouraged new producers. Also, the processing and distribution of isotopes is complex and constrained, which can be critical when the isotopes concerned are short-lived.

A need for increased production capacity and more reliable distribution is evident. It reviewed the Mo supply chain to identify the key areas of vulnerability, the issues that need to be addressed, and the mechanisms that could be used to help resolve them. It requested an economic study of the supply chain, and this was published in by the NEA.

The report identifies possible changes needed. The NEA report predicted supply shortages from , not simply from reactors but due to processing limitations too. Historically reactor irradiation prices have been too low to attract new investment, and full cost recovery is needed to encourage new infrastructure. Transport regulation and denial of shipment impede reliable supply.

Outage reserve capacity needs to be sourced, valued, and paid for by the supply chain. Fission is the most efficient and reliable means of production, but Canada and Japan are developing better accelerator-based techniques. A review of the situation in mid showed that the market had substantially restructured following the supply crisis, and that restructuring had led to increased efficiencies in the use of material at the different layers in the supply chain.

The latest NEA data confirms a relatively flat market demand of around six-day TBq Mo per week at the end of radiochemical processing.

In addition, several sources of supply had ramped up production to lift the baseline supply capacity for the and periods to a level safely above the revised market demand. Also it called for proposals for an LEU-based supply of Mo for the US market, reaching six-day TBq per week by mid, a quarter of world demand.

Tenders for this closed in June , but evidently no immediate progress was made. In December Congress passed the American Medical Isotope Production Act of to establish a technology-neutral program to support the production of Mo for medical uses in the USA by non-federal entities.

In February , the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration NNSA selected four companies to begin negotiations for potential new cooperative agreement awards for the supply of molybdenum, mostly from accelerators.

Niowave is developing superconducting electron linear accelerators, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes is planning to irradiate Mo targets to produce Mo in a reactor, while in the longer term it is developing a method using a linear accelerator. See below for fuller descriptions. Such Mo has relatively low specific activity, and there are complications then in separating the Tc The company received approval to begin routine production in August , and aims eventually to meet half of US demand with six-day TBq per week.

MURR runs on low-enriched uranium. Longer-term NorthStar is considering a non-reactor approach. In , NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes signed an agreement with Westinghouse to investigate production of Mo in nuclear power reactors using its Incore Instrumentation System. It is aiming to set up a 44, m 2 radioisotope production facility in Columbia, Missouri. The NRC approved the plans in May However, Nordion withdrew from the project in April citing delays and cost overruns that had increased the project's commercial risk.

An earlier proposal for Mo production involving an innovative reactor and separation technology has lapsed.

They planned to use Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor AHR technology with LEU in small kW units where the fuel is mixed with the moderator and the U forms both the fuel and the irradiation target. As fission proceeds the solution is circulated through an extraction facility to remove the fission products with Mo and then back into the reactor vessel, which is at low temperature and pressure. In mid Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that it had recovered Mo from low-enriched sulphate reactor fuel in solution, raising the prospect of this process becoming associated with commercial reprocessing plants as at La Hague in France.

JSC Isotope was founded in and incorporated in Brazil is a major export market. Its product portfolio includes more than 60 radioisotopes produced in cyclotrons, nuclear reactors by irradiation of targets, or recovered from spent nuclear fuel, as well as hundreds of types of ionizing radiation sources and compounds tagged with radioactive isotopes.

It has more than 10, scientific and industrial customers for industrial isotopes in Russia. The Karpov Institute gets some supply from Leningrad nuclear power plant.

Australia's Opal reactor has the capacity to produce half the world supply of Mo, and with the ANSTO Nuclear Medicine Project will be able to supply at least one-quarter of world demand from Tcm or Mo can also be produced in small quantities from cyclotrons and accelerators, in a cyclotron by bombarding a Mo target with a proton beam to produce Tcm directly, or in a linear accelerator to generate Mo by bombarding an Mo target with high-energy X-rays.

It is generally considered that non-reactor methods of producing large quantities of useful Tc are some years away. At present the cost is at least three times and up to ten times that of the reactor route, and Mo is available only from Russia.

If Tc is produced directly in a cyclotron, it needs to be used quickly, and the co-product isotopes are a problem. An LEU target solution is irradiated with low-energy neutrons in a subcritical assembly — not a nuclear reactor. The neutrons are generated through a beam-target fusion reaction caused by accelerating deuterium ions into tritium gas, using a particle accelerator.

SHINE is an acronym for 'subcritical hybrid intense neutron emitter'. Construction at Janesville, Wisconsin commenced in August on 'Building One' and in May on the main production facility, which would eventually be capable of producing over one-third of global Mo demand. A hour test run of Phoenix's high-flux neutron generator was in June Its Cassiopeia plant at Janesville is to produce , doses of Lu per year from At Lansing in Michigan, Niowave is using a superconducting electron linear accelerator to produce isotopes from fission of low-enriched uranium.

It reports production of Mo, I, Sr and Xe among many others. Cobalt has mostly come from Candu power reactors by irradiation of Co in special rods for up to three years or five in RBMK , and production is being expanded. Most of this Co is used for sterilization, with high-specific-activity Co for cancer treatment. Much of the Co is supplied through Nordion. The process will use Areva NP's patent-pending method of producing radioisotopes using a heavy water nuclear power plant.

Orano Med built a small plant at Bessines-sur-Gartempe in France to provide Pb from irradiated thorium, and this came online in It was extended with a fivefold increase in capacity in A second plant has been built at Plano in Texas, operating from , and a new industrial-scale plant is planned for Caen in France.

Ra is a natural decay product of Th, and indirectly, of Th Some iodine is produced at Leningrad nuclear power plant from tellurium oxide, using irradiation channels in the RBMK reactors. A contract with the Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry provides for delivery of 2. In Rosatom announced the establishment of a radiopharmaceutical production plant at the Institute of Reactor Materials IRM , which had started with lutetium, producing 24 TBq of it in Ci.

The IRM will also produce iodine and iridium, and its products will be distributed through Isotop. Urenco Stable Isotopes at Almelo uses centrifuge technology to produce by centrifuge enrichment a variety of stable isotopes for medical applications. A new cascade commissioned in is designed to produce multiple isotopes, including those of cadmium, germanium, iridium, molybdenum, selenium, tellurium, titanium, tungsten, xenon and zinc.

Many radioisotopes are made in nuclear reactors, some in cyclotrons. Generally neutron-rich ones and those resulting from nuclear fission need to be made in reactors; neutron-depleted ones such as PET radionuclides are made in cyclotrons with energy ranging from 9 to 19 MeV.

There are about 40 activation product radioisotopes and five fission product ones made in reactors. Bismuth half-life: 46 min : Used for targeted alpha therapy TAT , especially cancers, as it has a high energy 8. Chromium 28 d : Used to label red blood cells for monitoring, and to quantify gastro-intestinal protein loss or bleeding. Cobalt 5. High-specific-activity HSA Co is used for brain cancer treatment.

Dysprosium 2 h : Used as an aggregated hydroxide for synovectomy treatment of arthritis. Holmium 26 h : Being developed for diagnosis and treatment of liver tumours. Administered as microspheres. Iodine 60 d : Used in cancer brachytherapy prostate and brain , also diagnostically to evaluate the filtration rate of kidneys and to diagnose deep vein thrombosis in the leg.

It is also widely used in radioimmuno-assays to show the presence of hormones in tiny quantities. A strong gamma emitter, but used for beta therapy. Iridium 74 d : Supplied in wire form for use as an internal radiotherapy source for cancer treatment used then removed , e.

Strong beta emitter for high dose-rate brachytherapy. Lead Used especially for melanoma, breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Demand is increasing. Used in peptide receptor radionuclide therapy PRRT.

Lutetium 6. Its half-life is long enough to allow sophisticated preparation for use. It is usually produced by neutron activation of natural or enriched lutetium targets or indirectly by neutron irradiation of Yb Palladium 17 d : Used to make brachytherapy permanent implant seeds for early stage prostate cancer. Emits soft x-rays.

Phosphorus 14 d : Used in the treatment of polycythemia vera excess red blood cells. Beta emitter. Potassium 12 h : Used for the determination of exchangeable potassium in coronary blood flow.

Rhenium 3. Beta emitter with weak gamma for imaging. Samarium 47 h : Sm is very effective in relieving the pain of secondary cancers lodged in the bone, sold as Quadramet. Also very effective for prostate and breast cancer. Scandium 4. It is produced by irradiating calcium to produce Ca which decays to Sc Selenium d : Used in the form of seleno-methionine to study the production of digestive enzymes.

Technetiumm 6 h : Used in to image the skeleton and heart muscle in particular, but also for brain, thyroid, lungs perfusion and ventilation , liver, spleen, kidney structure and filtration rate , gall bladder, bone marrow, salivary and lacrimal glands, heart blood pool, infection, and numerous specialized medical studies. Produced from Mo in a generator.

Pure beta emitter and of growing significance in therapy, especially liver cancer. Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine These are positron emitters used in PET for studying brain physiology and pathology, in particular for localizing epileptic focus, and in dementia, psychiatry, and neuropharmacology studies.