Radiochemistry

Abstract

In this year's review of recent progress in radiochemistry, new radiochemical methods for isotope production, advances in labelling procedures, radioactive isotopes in the environment and miscellaneous topics of radiochemical interest, will be covered but not radiation chemistry, neutron activation analysis and the chemistry of elements that happen to be radioactive. HighlightsThe incorporation of radioisotopes into, sometimes onto, nanoparticles, is becoming increasingly important in nuclear medicine, for therapy and also in diagnosis (ref. 108, 109, 148, 149, 153 and 261-264). Another important piece of work was the use of density functional theory to predict the properties and behaviour of a labelled molecule (ref. 130). General introductionIt is with great sadness that the death of Michael J. Welch in May of 2012 must be recorded. He it was who brought radiochemistry to the medical world, who demonstrated, to a sceptical audience, the potential that radioactive molecules had, when combined with tomography, for diagnosis and tumour location. For forty years he ceaselessly developed nuclear medicine, extending its range to more and more positron emitting isotopes and developing new chemical ways of incorporating them into increasingly complex bio-molecules, 'radiopharmaceuticals'.No new books on radiochemistry in 2012, but a review 1 of the discovery of artificial radioactivity and the report 2 of a conference on the synthesis and applications of labelled compounds have been published. Other conferences have been more focused on specific aspects of the preparation and uses of radioactive compounds, for medical diagnosis and therapy, 3 for autoradiography 4 and to study drug metabolism. 5 A history of the use of radio-iodine has published 6 and the design of bifunctional chelating molecules, 7,8 which can both encapsulate a radioactive atom and join benignly (one hopes so) to a protein or other bio-molecule, reviewed.

Engineered Deinococcus radiodurans R1 with NiCoT genes for bioremoval of trace cobalt from spent decontamination solutions of nuclear power reactors

“…These findings indicate that Ni or Co present in SE solution can regulate the expression of both NiCoT-RP and NiCoT-NA in Deinococcus recombinants. Efforts have been made in the past to remove *Co effectively from simulated effluent decontamination solution of nuclear power reactors (Ayres 1970;Venkateswaran et al 2003;Tišáková et al 2013;Urch 2013). The major objective of our study is to address the problem of solid waste generation in the hitherto adopted ion-exchange methodology, which exhibits only a limited selectivity in metal ion pickup during the treatment of spent decontamination solution arising from the decontamination of primary heat transport systems of nuclear power reactors of the water-cooled type.…”

“…Spent decontamination solutions are generated from powergenerating nuclear reactors during the chemical decontamination process (Ayres 1970;Taylor 1976;Cohen 1980;Lejon et al 1994;Urch 2013). Radioactive cobalt, mainly as an isotopic mixture of 59 Co, a stable isotope of elemental cobalt, and 60 Co, an activation product of 59 Co, are present at trace chemical concentrations (8.5-34 nM of total cobalt) in such solutions (Charlesworth 1971;Kurnaz et al 2007).…”