Purification of rad-waste arising from irradiated natural tin target towards tellurium-125m/antimony-125 radioisotope generator elaboration

Area of Science:

• Nuclear Chemistry
• Radiopharmaceutical Science

Background:

• Radioisotope generators are crucial for producing short-lived medical isotopes.
• Developing efficient generators for specific radioisotope pairs like ¹²⁵Sb/^125mTe is an ongoing research area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a new radioisotope generator for producing ¹²⁵Sb/^125mTe.
• To optimize the loading and elution processes for improved performance.

Main Methods:

• Utilized an irradiated tin target's impurity for ¹²⁵Sb separation.
• Employed a zirconium-silico-tungstate gel matrix for the generator.
• Investigated sulfuric acid concentration, ascorbic acid (oxidant), and acetic acid (complexing agent) for optimization.

Main Results:

• Optimized loading solution (0.5 M ascorbic acid and 0.5 M H₂SO₄) maximized ¹²⁵Sb distribution.
• Elution with 0.4 M acetic acid yielded 88.7% ^125mTe with <0.01% ¹²⁵Sb breakthrough.

Conclusions:

• A new ¹²⁵Sb/^125mTe radioisotope generator was successfully developed.
• The optimized method provides a highly efficient and pure source of ^125mTe for potential applications.