A Novel Method for 57/Ni and 57/Co Production using Cyclotron-Generated Secondary Neutrons

Abstract

Ni 57 Co Cyclotron Secondary neutron Nuclear medicine TALYS code 57 Ni and 57 Co radioisotpes are used in the synthesis of radiopharmaceuticals, for research purposes, as well as radiotherapy in nuclear medicine due to its decay characteristics. In this research, 57 Ni and 57 Co were produced using secondary neutrons. The secondary neutrons employed in this investigation were generated by bombarding 11 MeV protons into a target system consisting of Havar  foil as a vacuum window, aluminum foil as an energy degrader, aluminum tube as a target holder and nickel foil as a target via (p,n), (n,n) and (n,2n) nuclear reactions. The TALYS-calculated data were used to understand the origin of the secondary neutrons. In this experiment, variable Ni target thicknesses of 75, 150 and 225 m were irradiated with a fixed proton beam dose of 0.67 Ahr in order to study the dependence of the radioisotope yields on the target thickness. For the first time, 57 Ni and 57 Co radioisotopes were produced and observed experimentally following 58 Ni(n,2n) 57 Ni → 57 Co nuclear reaction. Experimental results indicated that for 225-m thick Ni target, the 57 Ni yield of 10.85 ± 3.29 Ci/Ahr and 57 Co yield of 6.04 ± 2.45Ci/Ahr were recorded after an hour cooling period. The resulted yields did not strongly depend on the target thickness. This proposed novel method is a promising method to obtain higher radioactivity yield in the production of 57 Ni and 57 Co radioisotopes.

Comparison of 192Os(p,n)192Ir and 192Os(d,2n)192Ir Nuclear Reactions for 192Ir Production

“…In addition, Microsoft Excel was employed for data processing and radioactivity yield calculations using mathematical equation ( 5). The SRIM 2013 and TENDL 2017 have been previously used to study several radioisotopes production [22,23].…”

Recoiled and Sputtered Radioactive Impurities in 11 MeV Proton-based F-18 Production

“…Other studies have also compared their results with the SRIM-calculated data (Kumar & Diwan, 2015;Pineda-Vargas, 2015;Fontana et al, 2016). Furthermore, the SRIM software was also used to simulate proton range in Nickel target (Suryanto & Kambali, 2018) 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION…”

Electrochemical deposition of nickel targets from aqueous electrolytes for medical radioisotope production in accelerators: a review

“…Nuclear reactions of nickel can also produce 57 Co and 58 Co which are radiolabelling agents used in radiotracer medical studies (e.g. Schilling test [71,72]) [5,10,11,16,41,69]. Finally, 64 Ni(p,α) reaction produces 61 Co that was suggested for use in medical molecular imaging [17].…”