Large-scale production of lutetium-177m for the 177mLu/177Lu radionuclide generator

Rupali Bhardwaj; Bernard Ponsard; Mehmet Sarilar; Bert Wolterbeek; Antonia Denkova; Pablo Serra-Crespo

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108986

Large-scale production of lutetium-177m for the ^177mLu/¹⁷⁷Lu radionuclide generator

Appl Radiat Isot. 2020 Feb:156:108986. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108986. Epub 2019 Nov 16.

Authors

Rupali Bhardwaj¹, Bernard Ponsard², Mehmet Sarilar³, Bert Wolterbeek³, Antonia Denkova³, Pablo Serra-Crespo⁴

Affiliations

¹ Applied Radiation and Isotopes, Department of Radiation Science and Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Technical University Delft, Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB, Delft, the Netherlands; Catalysis Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Van der Maasweg 9, 2629 HZ, Delft, the Netherlands.
² BR2 Reactor, Belgian Nuclear Research Centre, SCK CEN, Boeretang 200, B-2400, Mol, Belgium.
³ Applied Radiation and Isotopes, Department of Radiation Science and Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Technical University Delft, Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB, Delft, the Netherlands.
⁴ Applied Radiation and Isotopes, Department of Radiation Science and Technology, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Technical University Delft, Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB, Delft, the Netherlands. Electronic address: P.SerraCrespo@tudelft.nl.

PMID: 31786419
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108986

Abstract

In this work, ^177mLu has been produced by irradiation of natural Lu₂O₃ targets at the BR2 reactor (Mol, Belgium) and the obtained data together with literature values have been used to theoretically investigate the production of ^177mLu at different neutron fluxes, irradiation times and enrichment of ¹⁷⁶Lu. The irradiation time (t_max) needed to reach the maximum ^177mLu production has been found to change from 42, 12, 4 days with the increase in the thermal neutron flux from 2*10¹⁴, 8*10¹⁴, 2.5*10¹⁵ n cm^-2 s^-1, respectively while keeping the maximum ^177mLu activity unaffected. The results of our calculations suggest that 0.11 TBq ^177mLu with a specific activity of 0.3 TBq g^-1 Lu can be produced in a short irradiation time of 4 days using 1g of 84.44% ¹⁷⁶Lu enriched Lu₂O₃ and a thermal neutron flux of 2.5*10¹⁵ n cm^-2 s^-1.