18 O-labeled water (Water-18 O) is a widely used starting material of 18 F-labeled diagnostic agents in positron emission tomography (PET). Conventionally, Water-18 O has been separated from other stable oxygen isotope species ( 16 O, 17 O) by water distillation or nitric oxide distillation. However, conventional methods are costly and may have safety issues. In 2004, we developed the first unit of our novel oxygen isotope separation process by cryogenic oxygen distillation to overcome these issues. To meet the needs of the market, we built a second unit in 2013 and a third in 2016. We are now operating three commercially viable separation units with a total capacity of 600 kg of Water-18 O per year.

Oxygen-17 is a stable oxygen isotope useful for various diagnostics in both engineering and medical applications. Enrichment of 17O, however, has been very costly due to the lack of appropriate methods that enable efficient production of 17O on an industrial level. In this paper, we report the first 17O-selective photodissociation of ozone at a relatively high pressure, which has been achieved by irradiating a gas mixture of 10 vol% O3-90 vol% CF4 with narrowband laser. The experiment was conducted on a pilot-plant scale. A total laser power of 1.6 W was generated by external-cavity diode lasers with all the laser wavelengths fixed at the peak of an absorption line of 16O16O17O around 1 μm. The beams were introduced into a 25 -m long photoreaction cell under the sealed-off condition with a total pressure of 20 kPa. Lower cell temperature reduced the background decomposition of ozone, and at the temperature of 158 K, an 17O enrichment factor of 2.2 was attained.

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