116 



RADIOISOTOPES IN BIOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE 



cannot be tolerated. Other facilities will be required for nonradioactive 

 operations such as utility and storage rooms, a darkroom, animal or plant 

 rooms, and offices; these present no special problems and will not be 

 considered further. 



Feet 

 — 1 — I — I — I 



Fig. 4-1. Typical one-room radiochemical laboratory of about 400 ft-. Arrows indi- 

 cate air-flow pattern. 



Figure 4-1 illustrates a one-room laboratory of about 400 ft- that would 

 be suitable for handling several millicuries of a soft-beta emitter or micro- 

 curie quantities of more energetic emitters. The counting is done as 

 far as possible from the chemical operations, and the use of a shielded 

 counter tube is very helpful under these conditions. A two-room labora- 

 tory of about 700 ft^ is showai in Fig. 4-2. The main feature is the use 

 of a separate room for counting procedures. The higher-level work in 

 the main laboratory would be performed in the hoods and adjacent lab- 

 oratory benches. A typical six-room laboratory is shown in Fig. 4-3. 



