Development of a production scale purification of Ge-68 from irradiated gallium metal
-
Jonathan M. Fitzsimmons
and
Leonard Mausner
Abstract
Germanium-68 (Ge-68) is produced by proton irradiation of a gallium metal target and purified by organic extraction. The Ge-68 can be used in a medical isotope generator to produce Gallium-68 (Ga-68) which can be used to radiolabel PET imaging agents. The emerging use of Ge-68 in the Ga-68 medical isotope generator has caused us to develop a new purification method for Ge-68 that does not use toxic solvents. The purpose of this work was to develop a production scale separation of Ge-68 that utilizes a leaching step to remove a bulk of the gallium metal, followed by purification with Sephadex© G25. Production scale (300 mCi) purification was performed with the new method. The purified Ge-68 contained the highest radioactivity concentration of Ge-68 produced at BNL; the sample meet Department of Energy specifications and the method had an excellent recovery of Ge-68.
Acknowledgement
This study was supported by funding provided by the Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics, subprogram Isotope Development and Production for Research and Applications. Special thanks to the Brookhaven National Laboratory isotope production team: Cleve Dodge, Louis Evers Jr., Anna Goldberg, Elizabeth Korach, Slawko Kurczak, Joseph O'Conor, Dmitri Medvedev.
©2014 Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Measurement of cross section of the 98Mo(n, γ)99Mo reaction using monochromatic thermal neutrons
- A new 2-oxy-N,N-dioctylacetamide grafted resin for the separation of trivalent actinides from nitric acid medium
- Mixer-settler runs for the evaluation of tri-iso-amyl phosphate (TiAP) as an alternate extractant to tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP) for reprocessing applications
- Comparative study on the production of 68Ga from proton induced reactions on different targets: Evaluation of experimental data and model calculations
- Development of a production scale purification of Ge-68 from irradiated gallium metal
- New neutral and lipophilic technetium complexes based on a cytectrene moiety: synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation
- Degradation of morphine and codeine by gamma radiation in methanol solution
- Polycarbonate-based benzo-δ-sultam films for high-dose dosimetry in radiation processing
- Modeling of physico–chemical characteristics of concrete for filling trenches in radioactive waste management
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Measurement of cross section of the 98Mo(n, γ)99Mo reaction using monochromatic thermal neutrons
- A new 2-oxy-N,N-dioctylacetamide grafted resin for the separation of trivalent actinides from nitric acid medium
- Mixer-settler runs for the evaluation of tri-iso-amyl phosphate (TiAP) as an alternate extractant to tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP) for reprocessing applications
- Comparative study on the production of 68Ga from proton induced reactions on different targets: Evaluation of experimental data and model calculations
- Development of a production scale purification of Ge-68 from irradiated gallium metal
- New neutral and lipophilic technetium complexes based on a cytectrene moiety: synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation
- Degradation of morphine and codeine by gamma radiation in methanol solution
- Polycarbonate-based benzo-δ-sultam films for high-dose dosimetry in radiation processing
- Modeling of physico–chemical characteristics of concrete for filling trenches in radioactive waste management
