Cross section measurements for the production of Cr and Sc from proton irradiation of natural vanadium up to 24 MeV.

Scandium-47 is a promising radionuclide for targeted radiotherapy and is also an elementally matched therapeutic partner to Sc and Sc, which are suitable for Positron Emission Tomography. The predominantly reported routes for the production of Sc employ expensive enriched titanium or calcium targets to achieve high radionuclidic purity. This study reports measurements of the excitation function of the V(p,x)Sc reaction at proton energies of 18-24 MeV to optimize bombardment parameters for the production of Sc using this promising approach. The cross-sections reported here demonstrate that irradiation of vanadium targets can produce >99% radionuclidically pure Sc with a proton energy of 24 MeV, albeit at modest yields.