Use of commercial pharmaceutical drug (Daktarin®) for retrospective/accidental/forensic thermoluminescence dosimetry.

Retrospective/accidental dosimetry seeks for materials that can be used as probes for the dose assessment by means of several methods when there is no dose data available (e.g. from personal dosimeters). In the same respect, researchers also seek materials appropriate for forensic purposes, which would allow to identify the prior presence of radioactive materials at buildings, sites or even vehicles. To this direction, several solid-state drugs, which are ubiquitous, have also been studied as probes for the dose estimation in emergency situations. However, due to their heat-sensitive character, measurements were possible only with OSL. The scope of the present work is to identify a heat-resistant drug (Daktarin) and conduct, for the first time, a detailed study of the thermoluminescence properties of it along with computerized curve deconvolution analysis which would shed light on the traps involved. Results indicate that the glow curve of Daktarin has at least three peaks that can be used for dosimetric purposes, since they exhibit linear dose response for doses up to 20 Gy, do not exhibit any sensitization, have high lifetime and their stability with time is good, since an appreciable signal remains unaffected even 3 months post irradiation. All the above were validated conducting dose recovery tests and successfully calculating the unknown delivered dose for various periods after the irradiation of the samples. The new findings are very supportive and point towards the efficient use of commercial pharmaceuticals as probes for retrospective/accidental/forensic dosimetry using thermoluminescence.

Optically stimulated luminescence investigation of chicken bones towards their use at food post-sterilization and retrospective dosimetry.

The present work explores the luminescence behavior of animal bones and more specifically, chicken bones, using OSL in order to investigate whether they can be used for the dose assessment in the case of an accident or as dosimeters at the post-sterilization dosimetry of foods. Results indicate that the OSL sensitivity is rather low and the lower detection limit is ~18 Gy eliminating the possibility of using bones as emergency dosimeter. However, the OSL dose response is linear for doses up to ~1.0 kGy, while response over the entire dose range, up to several kGy, can be fitted with an exponential saturation curve. When bones are kept in dark, half of the initial OSL signal is lost seven days after irradiation, with no further loss for longer time periods up to two months post-irradiation. Since bones are heat-sensitive and exhibit sensitization, a dose recovery test was also conducted using the SARHS protocol in order to investigate if the protocol is capable of calculating the sterilization/accidental dose of irradiated chicken/poultry. The "unknown" doses were successfully recovered even when fading was considered. Considering the fact that bones are not directly exposed to light (protected by the skin and the flesh) or to high temperatures, it seems that they could be used at retrospective dosimetry and the identification of irradiated food products containing bone (food post-sterilization dosimetry).

Thermoluminescence characteristics of a chondrite (Holbrook) and an aubrite achondrite (Norton County) meteorites.

The present study constitutes the first part of a meteorite project, currently in progress, towards the full and thorough dosimetric study (TL and OSL) of two different meteorites of recent fall, Norton County and Holbrook. Both meteorites exhibit strong TL sensitivity, linear dose response and no saturation for doses up to 2kGy. However, the two meteorites exhibited a very dissimilar TL glow curve and behaviour regarding sensitization and fading. Notably, the Norton County aubrite achondrite was found to exhibit a strong fading of the high-temperature peak (~300°C), attributed to anomalous fading, whereas Holbrook did not seem to show signs of anomalous fading. Since quantitative conclusions regarding the thermal and irradiation history of meteorites, require knowledge of the detailed peak structure of the glow curve and deeper understanding of the trapping mechanism, the glow curves, after irradiation in the range 10-2000Gy, were deconvoluted using general order kinetics. The fitting parameters extracted point towards complex non-strictly first order mechanisms with a multitude of traps acting very differently. All the above, combined with future OSL measurements, currently in progress, are expected to shed light on the nature of the involved traps in both phenomena (energy depth, light-resistance etc), which would allow to extract more concrete conclusions about their history.

Component resolved bleaching study in natural calcium fluoride using CW-OSL, LM-OSL and residual TL glow curves after bleaching.

Natural calcium fluoride has been commonly used as thermoluminescence (TL) dosimeter due to its high luminescence intensity. The aim of this work includes attempting a correlation between specific TL glow curves after bleaching and components of linearly modulated optically stimulated luminescence (LM-OSL) as well as continuous wave OSL (CW-OSL). A component resolved analysis was applied to both integrated intensity of the RTL glow curves and all OSL decay curves, by using a Computerized Glow-Curve De-convolution (CGCD) procedure. All CW-OSL and LM-OSL components are correlated to the decay components of the integrated RTL signal, apart from two RTL components which cannot be directly correlated with either LM-OSL or CW-OSL component. The unique, stringent criterion for this correlation deals with the value of the decay constant λ of each bleaching component. There is only one, unique bleaching component present in all three luminescence entities which were the subject of the present study, indicating that each TL trap yields at least three different bleaching components; different TL traps can indicate bleaching components with similar values. According to the data of the present work each RTL bleaching component receives electrons from at least two peaks. The results of the present study strongly suggest that the traps that contribute to TL and OSL are the same.

Preliminary thermoluminescence investigation of commercial pharmaceutical glass containers towards the sterilization dosimetry of liquid drugs.

Drug sterilization with ionizing radiation is a well-established technology, which is constantly extending to several products due to its numerous advantages, since it allows the heat-free sterilization of heat-sensitive pharmaceutical preparations. In a previous study, the possibility to identify irradiated solid-state drugs by means of OSL and TL was examined with very promising findings. In the same respect, the present work aims, for the first time to the authors' best knowledge, to explore whether TL can be employed as a method for post-sterilization dosimetry on commercial liquid-state drugs, by studying the properties of their glass containers. Two different types of glass containers (bottle and ampoule) of two widely used liquid drugs, i.e., Hexalen® and Voltaren®, are used for this purpose. Both glass containers exhibit a linear TL dose response for doses up to 6kGy with a stable behavior through time, while no significant sensitization of the main peaks is observed. Thus, preliminary findings are very promising towards the post-sterilization dosimetry of liquid drugs and the use of the containers of commercial liquid drugs for normal and/or accidental dosimetry.

A cleaning method to minimize contaminant luminescence signal of empty sample carriers using off-the-shelf chemical agents.

Signals acquired during thermoluminescence or optically stimulated luminescence measurements must be completely free of any spurious and/or contamination signals to assure the credibility of the results, especially during exploratory research investigating the luminescence behavior of new materials. Experiments indicate that such unwanted signals may also stem from new (unused) and used empty sample carriers, namely cups and discs, which are widely used for such measurements, probably due to contamination from a fluorite and/or silica-related source. Fluorite and/or silicone oil appear to be the most likely sources of contamination, thus, their removal, along with any other possible source that exhibits undesirable luminescence behavior, is necessary. Conventional cleaning methods fail to eliminate such contaminants from empty cups and discs. In this work a new cleaning method is proposed incorporating off-the-shelf chemical agents. Results of thermoluminescence measurements highlight the efficiency of the new cleaning process, since it can completely remove any observed contaminants from both new and used sample carriers, of various shapes and/or materials. Consequently their signal is minimized even at relatively high beta-doses, where it is prominent, resulting in a clean and only sample-attributed signal.

Preliminary thermoluminescence and optically stimulated luminescence investigation of commercial pharmaceutical preparations towards the drug sterilization dosimetry.

Drug sterilization with ionizing radiation is a well-established technology and is gaining ground the last decades due to its numerous advantages. Identification of irradiated drugs would be interesting and, in this respect, the present work aims, for the first time to the authors' best knowledge, to explore whether OSL and TL can be employed as methods for post-sterilization dosimetry on commercial drugs, i.e., as tools for the detection of irradiated drugs. Five widely used drugs, i.e., Daktarin(®), Aspirin(®), Panadol(®), Brufen(®) and Procef(®), are used for this purpose. Preliminary findings are very promising towards the post-sterilization dosimetry and the use of commercial drugs for normal and/or accidental dosimetry.