First measurement of the radionuclide purity of the therapeutic isotope Cu produced by Z(,) reaction using C(,) neutrons

Sato, Nozomi; Tsukada, Kazuaki  ; Watanabe, Satoshi; Ishioka, Noriko; Kawabata, Masako; Saeki, Hideya; Nagai, Yasuki; Kin, Tadahiro*; Minato, Futoshi   ; Iwamoto, Nobuyuki  ; Iwamoto, Osamu  

We have for the first time demonstrated that the therapeutic nuclide of Cu produced by Zn(,)Cu has highest radionuclide purity compared to previous ones. We measured a -ray spectrum of the reaction product produced by bombarding an enriched Zn sample with neutrons with a HPGe detector. The neutrons were obtained by C(,) using 41 MeV deuterons provided from Takasaki Ion Accelerators for Advanced Radiation Application of Japan Atomic Energy Agency. Relative production yields of impurity radionuclides such as Zn to Cu are extremely low, which allow us to chemically separate Cu from an irradiated Zn sample with a few steps and to reuse high cost an enriched Zn sample. The present result strongly suggest that the Zn(,)Cu reaction is the most promising route to produce high quality Cu and could solve a longstanding problem of establishing an appropriate production method of Cu.