Removal of europium impurities from samarium-153 in nitrate media using ionic liquids

status: publishe

Separation of samarium and europium by solvent extraction with an undiluted quaternary ammonium ionic liquid: towards high-purity medical samarium-153

Long-lived europium-154 impurities are formed during the production of medical samarium-153 in a high-flux nuclear reactor. A method to separate these europium impurities from samarium was investigated using the hydrophobic quaternary ammonium ionic liquid Aliquat 336 nitrate. The separation method consists of the selective reduction of Eu3+ by zinc metal in an aqueous feed solution containing a high nitrate salt concentration. Subsequent extraction using undiluted Aliquat 336 nitrate leads to an efficient separation of both lanthanides in a relatively short time frame. Sm3+ was extracted to the neat ionic liquid phase much more efficiently than Eu2+. An initial approach using the addition of dicyclohexano-18-crown-6 to capture Eu2+ in the ionic liquid phase was less efficient.status: publishe

Supported ionic liquid phases for the purification of medical samarium-153

Poster presentation by Michiel Van de Voorde; 1st poster awardstatus: publishe

Radiochemical processing of nuclear-reactor-produced radiolanthanides for medical applications

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Several radiolanthanides find their application in nuclear medicine because of their favorable decay properties, the most important ones being 143Pr, 149Pm, 153Sm, 165Dy, 161Tb, 166Ho, 169Er, 170Tm and 177Lu. These radiolanthanides can be efficiently produced via neutron irradiation in a high-flux nuclear research reactor. Radiochemical processing of the irradiated target is required to obtain the required purity or to remove redundant target material. Long-lived impurities can be removed to extend the expiration time of carrier added radiolanthanides, whereas non-carrier added radiolanthanides with high radionuclidic purity and high specific activities can be obtained for targeted radiotherapy. Transport and distribution criteria might become more flexible, helping to safeguard the supply of radiolanthanides for medical purposes. Valuable and expensive target material can be regenerated after separation of the medical radiolanthanide. Different radiochemical separation processes are discussed which are able to separate two adjacent lanthanides, with a focus on those techniques making use of the underlying coordination chemistry.status: publishe

Supported ionic liquid phases for the separation of samarium and europium in nitrate media: Towards purification of medical samarium-153

status: publishe

Het verstedelijken van constructiegeschiedenis. De stad als assemblage van bouwpraktijken?

Although urban planning and urbanization are directly and closely interrelated with the everyday practice of building, little systematic research exists on the interface between construction history and urban planning history. This article explores what the reciprocal epistemological implications of intersecting construction history with urban planning history might entail. Or, in other words, which research paths open up and which questions arise when we begin to ‘urbanise’ construction history – and conversely, when we rigorously interpret urbanism and urbanisation as an assemblage of construction practices? In a first part, a number of conceptual lines of intersection between the history of urbanism and urbanisation and construction history are identified. By means of a number of preliminary ‘snapshot cases’ we then illustrate which ‘sources’, ‘actors’ ‘methods’ and ‘forms of knowledge’ may be mobilized to concretely articulate research at the interface between construction history and urban planning history. The article concludes by mapping the ambition to work in the overlap between urban planning history and construction history within the broader objectives and ambitions of a new EOS research project entitled Construction History Above and Beyond: What history can do for construction history.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Purification of medical 153Sm using radiation-resistant ionic liquids

Poster presentation by Michiel Van de Voordestatus: publishe

Skeletal tissue, a viable option in forensic toxicology? A view into post mortem cases

Blood analysis is the golden standard in the field of forensic toxicology. However, when extended decomposition of the remains has occurred, alternative matrices are required. Skeletal tissue may provide an appropriate sample of choice since it is very resistant to putrefaction. However, today, the absence of reference data of drug concentrations in skeletal tissue poses a problem to meaningfully and reliably conduct toxicological testing on human skeletal material. The present study investigates the viability of skeletal tissue as an alternative matrix to evaluate xenobiotic consumption in legal cases. Blood, bone tissue and bone marrow of different forensic cases were screened for 415 compounds of forensic interest. Afterwards, methadone, clomipramine, citalopram and their respectively metabolites positive samples were quantified using fully validated methods. Sample preparation was carried out by SPE (whole blood and bone marrow), methanol extraction (bone sections) or protein precipitation (whole blood). All samples were analyzed using liquid chromatography coupled to a triple quad mass spectrometer. Multiple drugs were successfully identified in all sampled matrices. In bone (marrow) not as many substances were detected as in blood but it poses a valid alternative when blood is not available. Especially bone marrow showed big potential with a concordance of 80.5% with blood. Clomipramine, citalopram and their metabolites were proven to be detectable and quantifiable in all specimens sampled. Bone marrow showed the highest concentrations followed by blood and bone tissue. When citalopram blood concentrations were correlated with the bone concentrations, a linear trend could be detected. The same was seen between blood and bone marrow for citalopram concentrations. Methadone was also proven to be detectable in all specimens sampled. However, its metabolites EMDP and EDPP were absent or below the LOD in some samples. Overall, methadone concentrations were higher in bone marrow than in bone. With exception of one case, blood concentrations were higher than bone concentrations. For methadone, a linear trend could be found between blood and bone concentration. Comparing methadone concentrations in blood and bone marrow an exponential trend could be seen. In conclusion, these findings show the potential forensic value of bone and bone marrow as an alternative matrix. Aside to that, a standard protocol for the sample collection and processing is proposed.status: publishe

Purification of indium by solvent extraction with undiluted ionic liquids

A sustainable solvent extraction process for purification of indium has been developed from a chloride aqueous feed solution using the ionic liquids Cyphos® IL 101 and Aliquat® 336. The high affinity of indium(III) for the ionic liquid phase gave extraction percentages above 95% over the HCl concentration range from 0.5 to 12 M. Attention was paid to the loading capacity of the ionic liquid phase and the kinetics of the extraction process. An extraction mechanism was proposed based on the relationship between the viscosity of the ionic liquid phase and the loading with indium(III) ions. Even for loadings as high as 100 g L−1, equilibrium was reached within 10 min. Due to the very high distribution ratio for indium(III), stripping of indium(III) from the ionic liquid phase was very difficult with water or acid solutions. However, indium could conveniently be recovered as In(OH)3 by precipitation stripping with a NaOH solution. Precipitation stripping has the advantage that no ionic liquid components are lost to the aqueous phase and that the ionic liquid is regenerated for direct re-use. The extraction of some metal ions that are commonly found as impurities in industrial indium process solutions, i.e. cadmium(II), copper(II), iron(III), manganese(II), nickel(II), tin(IV) and zinc(II), has been investigated. The distribution ratios for the different metal ions show that indium(III) can be purified efficiently by a combination of extraction, scrubbing and stripping stages. This new ionic liquid process avoids the use of volatile organic solvents.crosscheck: This document is CrossCheck deposited related_data: Supplementary Information copyright_licence: The Royal Society of Chemistry has an exclusive publication licence for this journal copyright_licence: This article is freely available. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (CC BY 3.0) history: Received 29 February 2016; Accepted 9 May 2016; Accepted Manuscript published 9 May 2016; Advance Article published 17 May 2016; Version of Record published 11 July 2016status: publishe

Stability of europium(ii) in aqueous nitrate solutions

In the lanthanide series, Eu3+ is most easily reduced to its divalent state. Reduction of Eu3+ has been studied extensively in aqueous media that are insensitive to reducing conditions. Recently, it has been reported that reduction of Eu3+ is also feasible in aqueous nitrate solutions and that Eu2+ remained sufficiently stable in these media to conduct separation experiments. However, additional fundamental research on the reduction efficiency of Eu3+ and stability of Eu2+ in these media has not been reported yet. In this paper, cyclic voltammetry, magnetic susceptibility measurements, UV-vis absorption spectroscopy and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy were used to gain more insights into the reduction of Eu3+ in aqueous nitrate media. Within the parameters used in this work, near-quantitative reduction of Eu3+ could be achieved within 120 min in highly concentrated nitrate salt solutions, using both chemical and electrochemical reduction techniques. Moreover, Eu2+ was remarkably stable in these solutions, showing just a small percentage of back-oxidation after 5 h in a sealed measurement cell.status: publishe