Industrial radionuclide generators: a potential step towards accelerating radiotracer investigations in industry

Abstract

The novel use of industrial radionuclide generators (IRG) ensures onsite availability of short-lived radionuclides and is expected to contribute significantly to industrial radiotracer investigations. While IRG technology is in its infancy, the use of generator-derived radioisotopes is expected to have broad potential impact on industrial radiotracer investigations. The optimal combination of suitable IRGs and appropriate radiotracer agents will form the basis of such industrial radiotracer investigations. Development of IRGs customized for specific applications is currently under development and the utility of such systems is expected to pave the way for a variety of industry related applications in the areas of residence time distribution (RTD) study, flow rate measurement, leak detection, etc. In this review, we discuss the principles of radionuclide generators, assess major parent/daughter pairs of interest for IRG, and identify the expected utility of potentially useful IRGs. Availability of the parent radionuclides required for IRG fabrication is an important criterion and hence their production is also reviewed. This overview outlines a critical assessment of recent developments, the contemporary status, and key challenges and apertures to the near future. Increase in the knowledge and use of IRGs utilizing available resources will encourage expanded use of these systems for expected future industrial radiotracer studies.Prof. M. R. A.Pillai, PhD, DSc retired as Head, Radiopharmaceuticals Division, BARC in 2013. He worked at the University of Missouri-Columbia as postdoctoral research associate (1987-89) and as visiting professor (1994). He served the IAEA (2003IAEA ( -2010 as a Technical Officer, in which capacity he directed projects on isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals involving 40 countries as well published 14 IAEA documents. He is an Associate Editor of Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals and is a member of the Editorial Boards of Current Medicinal Chemistry, Current Radiopharmaceuticals and the American Journal of Nuclear medicine and Molecular Imaging. He has authored three books, 130 papers including 10 review articles, and holds two US patents.

Processing and evaluation of linear accelerator-produced 99Mo/99mTc in Canada

“…Such low specific activity 99 Mo/ 99m Tc preparations require separation technologies different from the current commercial alumina columns as alumina has a capacity of only up to 20 mg/g molybdenum. Alternative technologies for separation, including solvent extraction, have been variously reviewed in literature [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. MEK solvent extraction was described first by Gerlit in 1956 [23].…”

Molybdenum-99 production pathways and the sorbents for 99Mo/99mTc generator systems using (n, γ) 99Mo: a review

“…Several studies reviewed the separation technologies that have been traditionally used for the fabrication of 99 Mo/ 99m Tc generator systems. A detail discussion on comparative advantage, disadvantage, and technical challenges toward adapting the emerging requirements are discussed in these studies [20,41]. A number of methods including column chromatography, solvent extraction, sublimation and elution of metallic molybdenum gel [42] have been reported for the separation of daughter 99m Tc nuclide from the parents with a varying degree of success.…”

“…The column is then sealed at both ends with septa and placed in a shield and autoclaved. It is reported [59] that the procedure for preparing a fission product 99 Mo/ 99m Tc generator is significantly less complex than the (n,γ) 99 Mo generator described above as the fission product 99 Mo is carrier-free and therefore a much smaller alumina column can be used for the same activity. A schematic and crosssection of a commercial 99m Tc- 99 Mo generator is shown in Fig.…”

“…Various methods used to separate 99m Tc from99 Mo[4,41,97] expensive, and more practical route for indigenous production and use of 99m Tc. Many attempts have been made to develop different alternative technologies based on (n,γ)…”

Ion and Neutron Beams Discover New Facts from History

“…On the other hand, they result in low specific activity of 99 Mo where the 99 Mo is typically diluted with a thousand times more stable molybdenum compared to fission production and most of these routes prefer or require highly enriched 98 Mo or 100 Mo respectively. These drawbacks stimulated interest in the study of suitable generator matrices with high sorption capacity and low breakthrough of 99 Mo [Das13] Tc at the end of irradiation (proton energy 24 MeV, beam current 500 µA, irradiation time 6 h). Assuming another 6 hours for target processing, packing, quality control and transport, one could provide up to 1 TBq of 99m Tc to nuclear medicine departments, i.e.…”