Radioisotope production at the Kazakhstan cyclotron

Abstract

Cyclotrons play an important role for production of ‘carrier-free’ radioisotopes for various applications in the nuclear medicine, industry, ecology and science. Kazakhstan variable energy isochronous cyclotron, K = 50 MeV, is a 150 cm compact-pole 3 sector positive ion machine. It generates different beams of light ions: protons 6-30 MeV, deuterons 12.5-25 MeV, ³He-ions 18.5-62 MeV, alpha-particles 25-50 MeV. In the last years the cyclotron is rather intensively used for radioisotopes production to meet the needs of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The main users of radioisotope products are the Institutions of Healthcare Ministry and enterprises of oil-chemistry, metallurgy, mining, scientific institutes etc. In this submission a survey on radionuclides production including ²⁰¹Tl, ⁶⁷Ga, ⁵⁷Co, ¹⁰⁹Cd, ⁸⁸Y, ⁸⁵Sr is presented. Practically at all production stages (target preparation, extraction, purification and concentration of a product) original approaches were realized: (1) at target production by means of electrolysis the modes of reverse plating of the material for irradiation and technological layers were finalized, and at ⁶⁷Ga production new extraction with better characteristics were used; that made the deeper purification from zinc, copper and iron possible. At the development of the technologies of the sealed sources production the following results were obtained: (1) ¹⁰⁹Cd production for X-ray fluorescence analysis, and production of experimental samples for Mössbauer sources ⁵⁷Co at rhodium and palladium backings. The tracers ²³⁷Pu, ⁸⁸Y and ⁸⁵Sr used for development of the set of methods for ²³⁹Pu, ²⁴⁰Pu, ⁹⁰Sr and ²⁴¹Am determination in the samples from Semipalatinsk Test Site were produced via nuclear reactions with alpha-particles on ²³⁵U and protons on ⁸⁸Sr, ⁸⁵Rb targets. Produced radiopharmaceutical preparations ²⁰¹Tl chloride and ⁶⁷Ga citrate are supplied to medical centers of Almaty.