The role of a new liquid-solid scintillator, a mixture of DPO, POPOP and Epon 812, for enhancement of autoradiograms with tritium agents.

It is desirable to shorten expose time in 3H-autoradiography. We developed a new solid scintillator, a mixture of DPO, POPOP and Epon 812, for whole-body autoradiography. The new scintillator is originally in a sol form, but quickly transforms to a solid homogeneous film following exposure to room air. The new scintillator enabled whole-body autoradiography to be developed faster when compared with a liquid scintillator or commercially available reagents. We also demonstrated that the new scintillator gave consistently high counting performance and thus shortened duration of exposure when used in whole-body autoradiography, whereas commercially available enhancers were found to be unsuitable for autoradiography, resulting in dappled images. Furthermore the quantitative analyses of the autoradiograms by a densitometer demonstrated the highest density, and ratio with this new solid scintillator among those with a liquid scintillator and commercially available reagents. In conclusion, a new solid scintillator, a mixture of DPO, POPOP and Epon 812, is a useful and cost effective enhancer for the whole-body autoradiography of tritum compounds.