Production, Collection, and Purification of Ca for the Generation of Sc through Isotope Harvesting at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory.

An experiment was performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory using a 140 MeV/nucleon Ca beam and a flowing-water target to produce Ca for the first time with this production route. A production rate of 0.020 ± 0.004 Ca nuclei per incoming beam particle was measured. An isotope harvesting system attached to the target was used to collect radioactive cationic products, including Ca, from the water on a cation-exchange resin. The Ca collected was purified using three separation methods optimized for this work: (1) DGA extraction chromatography resin with HNO and HCl, (2) AG MP-50 cation-exchange resin with an increasing concentration gradient of HCl, and (3) AG MP-50 cation-exchange resin with a methanolic HCl gradient. These methods resulted in ≥99 ± 2% separation yield of Ca with 100% radionuclidic purity within the limits of detection for HPGe measurements. Inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) was used to identify low levels of stable ions in the water of the isotope harvesting system during the irradiation and in the final purified solution of Ca. For the first time, this experiment demonstrated the feasibility of the production, collection, and purification of Ca through isotope harvesting for the generation of Sc for nuclear medicine applications.