3 ms·

Good point. I work a bit with PET-related isotopes, mostly fluor-18 and carbon-11, which has half-lives of 110 and 20 minutes, respectively. You gotta be caref

Good point. I work a bit with PET-related isotopes, mostly fluor-18 and carbon-11, which has half-lives of 110 and 20 minutes, respectively. You gotta be careful with that stuff, the radiation (β-minus) is pretty dangerous if you're exposed for long (usually there's 5-30 GBq per vial), but again, it's pretty neat that if something happens (you spill something for example), you can just leave the room and clean it the next day without any problems. Overall, there's really no radioactive waste, since after 24 hours it's darn safe (and the FDG turned to sugarwater, literally).

personjerry 10y ago
> you can just leave the room and clean it the next day without any problems Wouldn't it radiate into the room and make the room... bad? (Sorry, I'm clueless about this subject)
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  Usually it's neutron radiation that makes things radioactive[1]. Really energetic particles can do the same[2]. But the positron emission from Flourine-18 I don't think has enough energy to do that. [1] Being neutral particles they can easily be absorbed by the nucleus of whatever. Adding an extra neutron may result in an unstable nucleolus. [2] Friend that worked at SLAC (big linear accelerator) gave us a tour and mentioned the block of aluminum they use to backstop the beam. He said it gets slightly radioactive. http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/1250/slac-pub-1406.pdf http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/1250/slac-pub-140...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hexane360 10y ago
  Radiation is very different from radioactivity. It's sort of like the idea that a microwave can be dangerous running exposed, but it's fine the moment the magnetron stops. If you have a rapidly decaying isotope, it will produce lots of radiation. However, most of that radiation will be harmless. Some ionizing radiation will be able to change the atoms that make up surrounding materials, but most of that will remain harmless, and very little will become radioactive.

personjerry 10y ago

> you can just leave the room and clean it the next day without any problems Wouldn't it radiate into the room and make the room... bad? (Sorry, I'm clueless about this subject)

Gibbon1 10y ago
Usually it's neutron radiation that makes things radioactive[1]. Really energetic particles can do the same[2]. But the positron emission from Flourine-18 I don't think has enough energy to do that. [1] Being neutral particles they can easily be absorbed by the nucleus of whatever. Adding an extra neutron may result in an unstable nucleolus. [2] Friend that worked at SLAC (big linear accelerator) gave us a tour and mentioned the block of aluminum they use to backstop the beam. He said it gets slightly radioactive. http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/1250/slac-pub-1406.pdf http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/1250/slac-pub-140...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hexane360 10y ago
Radiation is very different from radioactivity. It's sort of like the idea that a microwave can be dangerous running exposed, but it's fine the moment the magnetron stops. If you have a rapidly decaying isotope, it will produce lots of radiation. However, most of that radiation will be harmless. Some ionizing radiation will be able to change the atoms that make up surrounding materials, but most of that will remain harmless, and very little will become radioactive.