Application Of Radiation And Radioisotopes In Biotechnology

Major Fields of Non-power application of Radiation and isotopes

Agriculture Health Industry Environment

Radiography

Radioisotopes which emit gamma rays which can be used to check welds of new gas and oil pipeline systems, with the radioactive source being placed inside the pipe and the film outside the welds. This is more convenient than employing X-ray equipment.

Radioisotope power sources

Some radioisotopes emit a lot of energy as they decay. Such energy can be harnessed for heart pacemakers and to power navigation beacons and satellites.

The decay heat of plutonium-238 has powered many space vehicles, such as the Cassini space probe now orbiting Saturn and the New Horizons probe that will reach Pluto in 2015.

Radioisotopic Dating

Analysis of radioisotopes is of vital importance in determining the age of rocks and other materials that are of interest to geologists, anthropologists and archaeologists.

Production of Radioisotopes

Iodine-131 is commonly used to treat thyroid cancer, probably the most successful kind of cancer treatment, and also for non-malignant thyroid disorders.

Iridium-192 wire implants are used especially in the head and breast to give precise doses of beta rays to limited areas, then removed.

Samarium-153 relieve the pain of secondary cancers lodged in bone.

Industrial Radioisotopes Naturally occurring radioisotopes:

Chlorine-36: Used to measure sources of chloride and the age of water (up to 2 million years)

Carbon-14: Used to measure the age of water (up to 50,000 years)

Tritium (H-3): Used to measure 'young' groundwater (up to 30 years)

Lead-210: Used to date layers of sand and soil up to 80 years

Artificially produced radioisotopes:

Americium-241:Used in backscatter gauges, smoke detectors, fill height detectors and in measuring ash content of coal.

Caesium-137:

Used for radiotracer technique for identification of sources of soil erosion and deposition, in density and fill height level switches.

Used to predict the behaviour of heavy metal components in effluents from mining waste water.

Iridium-192, Gold-198 & Chromium-57:Used to label sand to study coastal erosion

Ytterbium-169, Iridium-192 & Selenium-75:Used in gamma radiography and non-destructive testing.

Tritiated Water: Used as a tracer to study sewage and liquid wastes

Silver-110m, Cobalt-60, Lanthanum-140, Scandium-46, Gold-198:Used together in blast furnaces to determine resident times and to quantify yields to measure the furnace performance.

Cobalt-60:Used for gamma sterilisation, industrial radiography, density and fill height switches.

Gold-198 & Technetium-99m:Used to study sewage and liquid waste movements, as well as tracing factory waste causing ocean pollution, and to trace sand movement in river beds and ocean floors.

Strontium-90, Krypton-85, Thallium-204:

Used for industrial gauging.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION OF NUCLEAR TECHNIQUES

Improving Product Quality and Saving Energy and Materials

Nucleonic Control System (NCS)

Gauges of thickness, density, moisture in plastic and tobacco industries

Non - Destructive Testing (NDT)

Quality Control of pipelines vessels, chemical plants, pressure vessel etc

Radiation Processing –Growing Application

Improving Properties:

Wires, cables, automobile tires, plastic tubes, rubber sheets best shrinkable material

Sterilization of Medical Products

Industry

* NDT testing of installation pipes, tanks and tankers

* Trouble shooting in oil, chemical and other industries by radiotracers

* Chemical and biochemical reactor design and testing

Contributions of Nuclear Technology in Industry

• Electron beam purification of flue gases

• Isotopic techniques to study climate change and predict future global changes resulting from greenhouse gases

• Rational exploitation of geothermal sources

• Isotope hydrology and geochemistry in geothermal fields

• Quality control and inspection of pipelines by NDT

Contributions of Nuclear Technology in Energy Industry

– Process Diagnostics and Optimization in Petrochemical Industry

– Role of Nuclear Power and other Energy Options in Competitive Electricity Market

Contributions of NuclearTechniques in Health Industry

– Molecular biology techniques using radionuclide methods (e.g. Polymerase chain reaction or PCR) for diagnosis of infectious diseases such as hepatitis B & C, tuberculosis

– Early detection of congenital diseases in children.

Contributions of NuclearTechnology in Environment

– Nuclear Power – reduces emission of greenhouse gases

– Isotope Techniques for Groundwater Contamination Studies in the Urbanized and Industrial Areas

– Uranium resources development through microorganisms

– Nuclear power plants for saltwater desalination

Environmental Protection

– Flue gas treatment

– Wastewater and sludge treatment

– Radiotracer Wastewater treatment plant optimization

– Radiotracer water evaporation and self purification study

– Radionuclides in the marine and terrestrial environment

PROTECTING THE ENVIRONENT

– Cleaning Flue Gases from Coal Burning Power Stations

– Treatment of Off-gases to Remove Toxic Compounds

– Cleaning Waters and Industrial Wastewater

– Disinfection of Sewage Sludge for Organic Fertilizer

– Monitoring of Radionuclides in the sea

– Locating Landmines

– About 60 million mines in 62 countries , about 26000 causalities per year

– Neutron Probes can identify content

Sterilization

– Many medical products today are sterilized by gamma rays. It is safer and cheaper because it can be done after the item is packaged. Medical products sterilized by radiation include syringes, cotton wool, burn dressings, surgical gloves, heart valves, bandages, plastic and rubber sheets and surgical instruments.

Smoke Detectors

– These contain a small amount of americium-241 which is a decay product of plutonium-241 originating in nuclear reactors.

– The Am-241 emits alpha particles which ionize the air and allow a current between two electrodes.

– If smoke enters the detector it absorbs the alpha particles and interrupts the current, setting off the alarm.

Environmental tracers

– Radioisotopes also play an important role in detecting and analyzing pollutants, since even very small amounts of a radioisotope can easily be detected, and the decay of short-lived isotopes means that no residues remain in the environment.

– Nuclear techniques have been applied to a range of pollution problems including smog formation, sulphur dioxide contamination of the atmosphere, sewage dispersal from ocean outfalls and oil spills.

Process and Waste Water Treatment

– Radionuclide are leached into water when it comes into contact with uranium and thorium bearing rocks and sediments. Water treatment often uses filters to remove impurities. Hence, radioactive wastes from filter sludges, ion-exchange resins, granulated activated carbon and water from filter backwash are part of NORM.

Scrap metal industry

– Scrap metal from various process industries can also contain scales with enhanced levels of natural radionuclides. The exact nature and concentration of these radionuclides is dependent on the process from which the scrap originated.

Metal smelting sludges

– Metal smelting slags, especially from tin smelting, may contain enhanced levels of uranium and thorium series radionuclides

Pollution due to Energy Sources

– “Some 2 billion people lack access to electricity and rely on traditional fuel sources such as firewood, kerosene, or biomass for their cooking and heating.” Which results in Pollution.

Nuclear Techniques in Phytoremediation

– Mutation breeding to produce new varieties in different plants/ trees used for Bioremediation of soil contaminated with hazardous pollutants

Biodiversity & Ecosystem Management

– “Biodiversity and the ecosystems they support are the living basis of sustainable development.”

Biodiversity & Contributions of Nuclear Techniques

– Nuclear techniques are used:

– To trace the fate of pollutants, and study sedimentation rates in pollution studies

– To identify pathways of pesticides & agrochemicals in the environment

– Investigating Environmental and Water Resources in Geothermal Areas

– Radioisotopes are also used for Molecular Biotechnology Techniques and DNA Sequencing

Hybridization

– The formation of a duplex between two complementary sequences

– Intermolecular hybridization: between two polynucleotide chains which have complementary bases

– DNA-DNA

– DNA-RNA

– RNA-RNA

– Annealing is another term used to describe the hybridization of two complementary molecules

Probes

– Probe is a nucleic acid that can be labeled with a marker which allows identification and quantitation will hybridize to another nucleic acid on the basis of base complementarity Types of labels Radioactive (32P, 35S, 14C, 3H)

– Fluorescent

– FISH: fluorescent in situ hybridization

– chromosomes

– Biotinylated (avidin-streptavidin)

Southern Blots

– Southern blotting is a procedure for transferring denatured DNA from an agarose gel to a solid support filter where it can be hybridized with a complementary nucleic acid probe

– The DNA is separated by size so that specific fragments can be identified

A Focus of Development: Automation User-Friendly, Faster, and Cost- Effective

– This electronic microarray is an example of "Lab-on-a-Chip" technology. It is an electrophoresis device that produces results up to 1000 times faster than conventional techniques while using much less sample.

High Resolution Banding and FISH

– The chromosome banding technique performed 20 years ago missed the small deletion. High resolution banding developed more recently can elucidate the abnormality. Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH) is a powerful technique in that it can reveal submicroscopic abnormalities even in non-dividing cells.