Production of Sc medical radioisotopes with proton and deuteron beams.

Proton and deuteron beams (15.3 and 6.8 MeV, respectively) extracted from the PETtrace medical cyclotron at the Radiopharmaceuticals Production and Research Centre in the University of Warsaw, Heavy Ion Laboratory, 28 MeV protons from the C30 cyclotron at the National Centre for Nuclear Research, Swierk, near Warsaw and 33 MeV protons from the ARRONAX accelerator, Nantes were used to produce and investigate the medically interesting Sc radioisotopes. Both natural and isotopically enriched CaCO3 and TiO2 targets were used (42Ca, 43Ca, 44Ca, 48Ca, 48Ti). The production efficiency and isotopic purity were determined and are reported here for the highest commercially available enrichments of the target material. The Thick Target Yield, Activities at the End of Bombardment (EOB) and the relative activities of produced impurities at EOB are reported for 43Sc, 44gSc, 44mSc and 47Sc produced with particle energies below 33 MeV.

Assessment and estimation of 65Zn production yield via neutron induced reaction on natZnO and natZnONPs.

Zinc-65 has been of great interest in medical, biomedical, agricultural, and industrial applications due to its suitable half-life and decay properties. The 65Zn was produced via neutron irradiation on natural zinc oxide and natural zinc oxide nanoparticles targets in Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) at a thermal neutron flux of 4.5 × 1013 n cm-2 s-1 for 30 min. The excitation function of 64Zn(n,γ)65Zn reaction was calculated via the TALYS-1.8 code. The MCNPX code was used to calculate the thermal neutron distribution. The 65Zn theoretical production yield was estimated using calculated cross sections and the calculated thermal neutron distribution. The obtained experimental data and simulated value of production yield for 65Zn were in reasonable agreement.

Investigation of the thermal performance of natCu target for 63Zn production.

The flow rate of coolant and the particle beam current are important when high beam current irradiations are intended for production of radionuclides. The beam current on natCu target to produce 63Zn via the natCu(p,n)63Zn reaction was investigated and the beam current was obtained more than 350 µA that is the maximum allowed beam current used for producing medical radioisotopes in Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute of Iran. In addition, the temperature distribution on the target under the different cooling water flow rates has been simulated based on finite element analysis program. The results show that the cooling water flow rate can be brought down to 1.5 L/min without the risk of melting of target material and boiling water.

Experimental study and simulation of 63Zn production via proton induce reaction.

The 63Zn was produced by16.8 MeV proton irradiation of natural copper. Thick target yield for 63Zn in the energy range of 16.8 →12.2 MeV was 2.47 ± 0.12 GBq/µA.h. Reasonable agreement between achieved experimental data and theoretical value of thick target yield for 63Zn was observed. A simple separation procedure of 63Zn from copper target was developed using cation exchange chromatography. About 88 ± 5% of the loaded activity was recovered. The performance of FLUKA to reproduce experimental data of thick target yield of 63Zn is validated. The achieved results from this code were compared with the corresponding experimental data. This comparison demonstrated that FLUKA provides a suitable tool for the simulation of radionuclide production using proton irradiation.

Assessment and estimation of 67Cu production yield via deuteron induced reactions on natZn and 70Zn.

67Cu radioisotope is a beta particle-emitting nuclide used in radioimmunotherapy (RIT) as well as for imaging, tracer kinetic studies and dosimetry. 67Cu can be produced by bombarding natZn with deuterons. In this study, the physical yields of 67Cu via natZn(d,x)67Cu reaction channel as well as via subreactions of 68Zn(d,2pn)67Cu, 67Zn(d,2p)67Cu, 70Zn(d,2p3n)67Cu, 68Zn(d,x)67Ni(T1/2=21s)→67Cu and 70Zn(d,x)67Ni(T1/2=21s)→67Cu in the natZn target have been calculated by using the MCNPX-2.6, TALYS-1.8 and SRIM codes. Also, the total cross sections for production of 67Cu from natZn(d,x)67Cu reaction channel in the energy range of 15-45MeV have been estimated by TALYS code. The best reaction to produce 67Cu radionuclide in a carrier free form was chosen with deuteron energy around 30MeV on 70Zn thick target. Good agreement between the calculated results and the experimental values shows that the employed methods can be used for prediction and production estimation in cyclotron.