Feasibility of isotope harvesting at a projectile fragmentation facility: ⁶⁷Cu

The work presented here describes a proof-of-principle experiment for the chemical extraction of (67)Cu from an aqueous beam stop at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). A 76 MeV/A (67)Cu beam was stopped in water, successfully isolated from the aqueous solution through a series of chemical separations involving a chelating disk and anion exchange chromatography, then bound to NOTA-conjugated Herceptin antibodies, and the bound activity was validated using instant thin-layer chromatography (ITLC). The chemical extraction efficiency was found to be 88 ± 3% and the radiochemical yield was ≥95%. These results show that extraction of radioisotopes from an aqueous projectile-fragment beam dump is a feasible method for obtaining radiochemically pure isotopes

Cost‐effectiveness of real‐world administration of tobacco pharmacotherapy in the United States Veterans Health Administration

Background and aimsCost‐effectiveness studies in randomized clinical trials have shown that tobacco cessation pharmacotherapy is among the most cost‐effective of health‐care interventions. Clinical trial eligibility criteria and treatment protocols may not be followed in actual practice. This study aimed to determine whether tobacco cessation pharmacotherapy is cost‐effective in real‐world settings.DesignA retrospective analysis of costs and outcomes.SettingHospitals and clinics of the US Veterans Health Administration, USA.ParticipantsA total of 589 862 US veterans who screened positive for tobacco use in 2011.Intervention and comparatorTobacco users who initiated smoking cessation pharmacotherapy in the 6 months after screening were compared with those who did not use pharmacotherapy in this period. Pharmacotherapy included nicotine replacement therapy, bupropion (if prescribed at 300 mg per day or specifically for tobacco cessation) or varenicline.MeasuresEffectiveness was determined from responses to a subsequent tobacco screening conducted between 7 and 18 months after the treatment observation period. Cost of medications and prescribing health‐care encounters was determined for the period between initial and follow‐up tobacco use screening. Multivariate fixed‐effects regression was used to assess the effect of initial treatment status on cost and outcome while controlling for differences in case‐mix with propensity weighting to adjust for confounding by indication.FindingsThirteen per cent of participants received tobacco cessation pharmacotherapy within 6 months of initial screening. After an average of an additional 218.1 days’ follow‐up, those who initially received pharmacotherapy incurred $143.79 in additional treatment cost and had a 3.1$4705 per quit. The upper limit of the 99.9% confidence region was $5600 per quit. Without propensity adjustment, the cost‐effectiveness ratio was$7144 per quit, with the upper limit of the 99.9% confidence region $9500/quit.ConclusionsTobacco cessation pharmacotherapy provided by the US Veterans Health Administration in 2011/12 was cost‐effective in this real‐world setting, with an incremental cost‐effectiveness ratio of$4705 per quit.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150598/1/add14621_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150598/2/add14621.pd

Preparing to Harvest Radioisotopes from FRIB

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) will be a new national user facility at Michigan State University (MSU) and funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE-SC). FRIB will have the ability to accelerate uranium to 200 MeV/nucleon and light ions with even more energy. A host of new isotopes will be generated by FRIB that could be harvested for off-line use. A study to harvest six of these useful radioisotopes from FRIB is being conducted. This study will use current conditions at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) to determine the production and extraction yields of six important radioisotopes. These six radioisotopes are 24Na, 67Cu, 48V, 85Kr, 44Ti, and 32Si, and will be collected in an aqueous beam dump at FRIB. Modeling of the nuclear reactions present at NSCL was done using two programs, LISE++ and Nucleonica. The information from these programs is being used to streamline the isolating and extracting procedures for the radioisotopes of interest from the aqueous beam dump at FRIB. These procedures are first being developed on “cold”, non-radioactive, species. These procedures will then be applied to “hot”, radioactive, species before being implemented at NSCL and, eventually, FRIB

Particle affinity for oil-water interfaces and selective adsorption

Many applications require the selective removal of particulate contaminants from aqueous solutions. Standard froth flotation is a very efficient process that is commonly used in these applications to indiscriminately remove very hydrophobic micron-sized particulate contaminants. It is desirable to have a method that can take advantage of the efficiency of such a process and be selective with regards to what particles are removed from the solution. One such method would be to coat the air bubbles in froth flotation with a thin layer of oil. This allows for the possibility of selecting oils that have strong attractive intermolecular interactions with a targeted particle and weak attractive interactions with other particles in the solution, which could cause only the targeted particle to strongly adsorb to the oil-water interface and rise to the top of the suspension with the bubble, while the other particles remain in the suspension. Demonstrating this concept of using oil-coated air bubbles to selectively remove particulate contaminants from process effluents, called “affinity flotation,” would be novel. This study focuses on the first step required to prove affinity flotation, which is examining potential oil and particle combinations that could be used to demonstrate the idea of affinity flotation. The main goals of this study are to (1) find three oils that can selectively remove only one particle from an aqueous suspension via one of the following attractive intermolecular interactions: hydrophobic, π-π, and acid-base; and (2) quantify the strength of the affinity the particles have for each of the possible oil-water interfaces. Potential oil and particle combinations were chosen based off the propensity of their molecular structures to have one of the aforementioned intermolecular interactions between them. These potential combinations were then screened using simple foaming ability and foam stability tests. Confocal microscopy was used to verify that capillary foams could be made for the chosen oil and particle combinations. The strength of the affinity a particle has for an oil-water interface was determined by using data collected through measuring the oil-water interfacial tension, the three phase contact angle of a particle at the interface, and the particle size. Results suggest that all of the oils were selective to one type of particle (i.e. only one particle had a high affinity for the oil-water interface, while the other particles had a low affinity); however, only two of the oils (DINCH and heptane) were selective towards the particles that were originally chosen because they have primarily one type of attractive intermolecular interaction with the oil (PVC via acid-base with DINCH and HMDS modified silica via hydrophobic with heptane). The other oil, toluene, was selective for PVC, but not for PS. The attractive intermolecular interactions between toluene and PS were too strong, resulting in the undesirable result of PS having a low affinity for the toluene-water interface. The calculated strength of particle adsorption to oil-water interfaces for PVC and PS particles were high for combinations that produced stable capillary foams in the foaming ability and stability tests, and low for combinations that were either semi-stable or unstable. This demonstrates why these quick and simple tests can be used to predict when particles have a high affinity for the oil-water interface of an oil-coated air bubble, and confirms that DINCH maybe selective enough to be used as an oil to demonstrate affinity flotation by removing PVC particles from binary suspensions. In short, this study provided some progress towards developing a model system to use to demonstrate affinity flotation by finding two oil and particle combinations (DINCH-PVC and heptane-HMDS modified silica) that could potentially be used in such a system.M.S

Feasibility of Isotope Harvesting at a Projectile Fragmentation Facility: Cu-67

The work presented here describes a proof-of-principle experiment for the chemical extraction of Cu-67 from an aqueous beam stop at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL). A 76 MeV/A Cu-67 beam was stopped in water, successfully isolated from the aqueous solution through a series of chemical separations involving a chelating disk and anion exchange chromatography, then bound to NOTA-conjugated Herceptin antibodies, and the bound activity was validated using instant thin-layer chromatography (ITLC). The chemical extraction efficiency was found to be 88 +/- 3% and the radiochemical yield was \u3e= 95%. These results show that extraction of radioisotopes from an aqueous projectile-fragment beam dump is a feasible method for obtaining radiochemically pure isotopes