Decontamination of a technetium contaminated fume hood in a research laboratory

After 4 y of working with 99Tc in milligram to gram quantities to make many different compounds and provide the resource for the generation of several publications, work in one of the fume hoods used by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), radiochemistry program started to cause an increase in contamination events that were discovered in weekly surveys. It was decided that the hood should be cleaned out when the researchers were away during the winter break in December 2009. The hood, until just before the winter break, held equipment from years of operation.