DETECTION OF IONIZING RADIATION TREATMENT IN GLASS USED FOR HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS

The treatment with high doses of ionizing radiation is prescribed for the terminal sterilization of many healthcare products. In order to check the product irradiation, it may be useful to develop suitable detection methods. The aim of this work was to verify the suitability of the thermoluminescence (TL) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) techniques to reveal illegal omission of radiation sterilization in glass used for blood test tubes. In particular, this work reports the results of the analysis performed on two batches of glass tubes provided by the same manufacturer. The results indicated that both TL and EPR techniques could reveal the damage induced by high doses of ionizing radiation in the glass allowing the identification of the tubes which were irradiated at the manufacture stage. The study provided also some information about the chemical composition of the two-batch glass.