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

Design And Construction Of A Water Target System For Harvesting Radioisotopes At The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory

A liquid water target system for harvesting radioisotopes at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) was designed and constructed as the initial step in proof-of-principle experiments to harvest useful radioisotopes from the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). FRIB will be a new national user facility for nuclear science, to be completed in 2020, at which radioisotopes will be collected synergistically from the water in cooling-loops for the primary beam dump that cycle the water at flow rates in excess of hundreds of gallons per minute. As part of the development of radiochemical expertise required to harvest long-lived radioisotopes of interest in this environment, the water target system described here was constructed and successfully used to collect a test beam of relativistic Na-24 ions produced at the NSCL. Future studies will involve collecting interesting transition metal isotopes such as Cu-67 from less purified secondary projectile fragment beams. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

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

Harvesting Cu-67 from the Collection of a Secondary Beam Cocktail at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory

Isotope harvesting is a promising new method to obtain isotopes for which there is no reliable continuous supply at present. To determine the possibility of obtaining radiochemically pure radioisotopes from an aqueous beam dump at a heavy-ion fragmentation facility, preliminary experiments were performed to chemically extract a copper isotope from a large mixture of projectile fragmentation products in an aqueous medium. In this work a 93 MeV/u secondary beam cocktail was collected in an aqueous beam stop at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) located on the Michigan State University (MSU) campus. The beam cocktail consisted of similar to 2.9% Cu-67 in a large mixture of co-produced isotopes ranging in atomic number from similar to 19 to 34. The chemical extraction of 67Cu was achieved via a two-step process: primary extraction using a divalent metal chelation disk followed by anion-exchange chromatography. A significant fraction (74 +/- 4%) of the 67Cu collected in the aqueous beam stop was recovered with \u3e99% radiochemical purity. To illustrate the utility of this product, the purified 67Cu material was then used to radiolabel an anti-EGFR antibody, Panitumumab, and injected into mice bearing colon cancer xenografts. The tumor uptake at 5 days postinjection was found to be 12.5 +/- 0.7% which was in very good agreement with previously reported studies with this radiolabeled antibody. The present results demonstrate that harvesting isotopes from a heavy-ion fragmentation facility could be a promising new method for obtaining high-quality isotopes that are not currently available by traditional methods