Development of inorganic ion exchangers for separation of Mo/Tc

Hu, X.; Suzuki, Tatsuya*; Wang, X.*; Wang, H.*; Fujita, Yoshitaka   ; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko 

Technetium-99m (Tc) stands as the most widely employed radionuclide for nuclear medicine diagnostic imaging procedures. Tc originates from the radioactive decay of molybdenum-99 (Mo). In present study, four inorganic ion exchangers were synthesized by combining SnCl with SbCl, WOCl, WO, and TiCl in a one-to-one for application to the separation of Tc and Mo by column chromatography approach. We conducted comparing and evaluating their respective Kd (distribution coefficient) values. We utilized these synthesized inorganic ion exchangers for adsorption in a solution with a prepared concentration of 4 ppm of Mo/Re, where Re acted as a surrogate element to simulate Tc. Various pH environments ranging from 2 to 12 were prepared. Subsequently, we conducted adsorption experiments using batch testing and determined the Kd values. The results revealed that all four ion exchangers exhibit commendable selectivity and relatively high Kd values, with SnCl-TiCl demonstrating the highest Kd.