The Application of Tantalum Target Substrate for Production Process of 64Cu

Abstract

In order to obtain the appropriate target backing material for 64Cu production which will meet radiolabeling requirements, and to reduce the content of stable copper impurity generated from copper target substrate in the final 64Cu product, tantalum is selected as the target backing material. By carrying out a series of experiments including thermal fluid solid coupling analysis, nickel plating experiment, dissolution experiment, irradiation experiment, falling test, thermal shock test on the tantalum target substrate, tantalum target substrate is finally utilized for 64Cu production. The results showed that tantalum target substrate could be applied to 64Cu production, which has simplified the whole production process of 64Cu, the yield can reach 38.1 GBq (EOB) or 190.5 MBq·μA-1·h-1 (EOB). The tests of ［64Cu］CuCl2 solution showed that the radionuclide purity was greater than 99.9%, radiochemical purity was greater than 95% and the metal impurity content was less than 1.5 μg·GBq-1. The research verifies that the tantalum target substrate can be used in 64Cu production, which avoids the process of electroplating gold and produces 64Cu more efficiently.

Keywords

• tantalum target substrate
• 64cu production
• electroplating
• quality control