A concise introduction on radiation chemistry

Chimie Nouvelle, 91, Mars 2006

C. Slegers

Laboratoire de radiostérilisation, UCL, Bruxelles

The laboratory of Chemical and Physico-Chemical Analysis of Drugs, under the supervision of Professor Bernard Tilquin, has dedicated over ten years of research to the study of the radiolysis of drugs; starting with the developmentof analytical techniques to detect ionized drugs, evolving to the study of radiolytic products formed and finally to establishing the different mechanisms governing the drug stability. Many recent theses of this laboratory studied the radiation chemical effects on drugs in aqueous solutions. The radiolysis of a drug in aqueous solution results from the indirect effect of the ionizing radiation, that is via the solvent radiolysis, which forms reactive species. In this case the solvent is water and therefore, a comprehensive introduction on the radiolysis of water is presented here.