Radiochemical studies relevant to cyclotron production of the therapeutic radionuclide 167Tm

Abstract

Abstract Thulium-167, having a half-life of 9.25 d, is an important therapeutic radionuclide. It was produced via the natEr(p,xn)167Tm nuclear reaction by irradiation of a sedimented target with 15 MeV protons at a beam current of 20 μA. Radiochemical separation of 167Tm from a solution of the irradiated erbium target in hydrochloric acid was performed using di-(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid (HDEHP) in n-hexane and in chloroform separately. The effect of different molarities of HDEHP on extraction efficiency was investigated. The radiochemical yield of 167Tm amounted to about 80 ± 5% while using n-hexane/HDEHP (1 M). The experimentally obtained production yield was about 3.2 MBq/μA h. It was comparable with the theoretical value of 4.1 MBq/μA h obtained from nuclear model calculations using the TALYS and EMPIRE codes.