Half-life determination of Ag.

Ag is a radionuclide that can be generated by neutron capture on Pd and whose decay properties and production feasibility make it a potential therapeutic agent against arthritis. Due to the discrepancies of recent published values of the half-life of Ag with previous published works which are not thoroughly documented for detailed experiment procedures and uncertainty budgets evaluation, an independent redetermination of the Ag half-life value is required. In this work, a solid Ag source was prepared and repeatedly measured in a high purity Germanium (HPGe) detector to determine its half-life. In total, more than fifty measurements were performed over a period of 26.3 days, corresponding to ∼3.5 half-lives of Ag. The experimental method and corresponding uncertainty budget are presented. The result of 7.419(15) days is consistent with the recently published value, 7.423(13) days, by Collins et al. and deviates by 0.418% from the currently recommended value 7.45(1) days. A new recommend half-life value of 7.437(7) days was determined utilizing all available experimental values by a power-moderated mean (PMM) method.