High purity radioisotopes and radioanalytical studies

Methods of production in nuclear reactions of high purity isotopes of practically monoisotope structure have been developed at the Center for Applied Physics (CAP). Methods of producing radio-nuclides in (α,xn) reactions at the U-200 cyclotron and photonuclear reactions with the help of the MT-25 microtron have been developed. Obtained were high purity preparations of radioactive isotopes in the carrier-free form: ⁸⁸Zr, ⁹²mNb, ⁹⁹Mo(⁹⁹mTc), ⁹⁷Ru, ¹⁰⁹Cd, ¹¹¹In,¹⁷⁵Hf, ¹⁷⁷Ta, ¹⁷⁸W(¹⁷⁸Ta), ¹⁸⁶Re, ¹⁸⁸Re, ²⁰⁹Po, ²¹¹At, ²³⁷U, ^236,237Pu, etc. The isotope purity reaches 10⁵-10⁷ Bq/Bq relative to admixtures. New methods of separation and concentration of radioisotopes (selective nuclear reactions, gathering of recoil nuclei, radiochemical separation) were developed. New methods of separating ²³⁷U and ²³⁸U with the enrichment factor of 10⁶ were elaborated.

The use of high purity isotopes in biomedical and ecological studies is quite actual. In particular, a metabolism of plutonium in a human body was studied in cooperation with Harwell Lab (Great Britain) by using a preparation of isotope ²³⁷Pu. Alpha -active isotopes ¹⁴⁹Tb, ²¹¹At, ²²⁵Ac look promising in cancer treatments. In ecology the pure isotopes are used as tracers when determining the radioactive impurity of a territory in co-operation with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL, UK). The “Migration” installation operates at CAP which is intended for investigation of the migration of various radioisotopes in natural environments (collaboration with institutions in Bulgaria, Mongolia, and Vietnam).

A scheme of producing ²²⁵Ас isotope in reaction ²²⁵Ra (γ,n) ²²⁵Ra>β>²²⁵Ac