Radioactive Decontamination in Lab

Q. What do you recommend for radioactive decontamination of stainless steel, glassware and lab equipment? We are a nuclear energy facility laboratory setting.

A. We would recommend Alconox® Powdered Precision Cleaner.  It can be used for radioactive decontamination of stainless steel, glassware, labware, and the like. The phosphates and chelating agents combined with the wetting agents in Alconox detergent are known to be effective at radioactive decontamination. We recommend use of a warm (if practical, otherwise ambient temperature solutions, it would just take longer) 1-2% (10-20 g/L or 1.25 – 2.5 oz/gal) solution of Alconox detergent in water for manual or soak cleaning.

Do not use any kind of high pressure spray or automated cleaning equipment as Alconox powdered detergent is a high foamer. Note that Alconox detergent will bind with radioisotopes and will inhibit separation and waste treatment of the spent cleaning solutions by ion exchange columns. It is better to treat spent cleaning solutions by evaporation than by ion exchange. Sometimes it is necessary to use an anti-foamer in the evaporator depending on the evaporator design and the volume of solution being treated with what other types of waste streams if any.

For applications where a low foaming detergent is required (automated, high pressure cleaning applications) 5% Detergent 8® Low-Foaming Ion-Free Detergent ambient temperature solutions, followed by thorough rinsing, can successfully perform decontamination.

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Contact us any time: cleaning@alconox.com