Purification of rad-waste arising from irradiated natural tin target towards tellurium-125m/antimony-125 radioisotope generator elaboration

A A El-Sadek; M R El-Naggar; Muhammad S Mansy

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2021.109690

Purification of rad-waste arising from irradiated natural tin target towards tellurium-125m/antimony-125 radioisotope generator elaboration

Appl Radiat Isot. 2021 Jun:172:109690. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2021.109690. Epub 2021 Mar 18.

Authors

A A El-Sadek¹, M R El-Naggar², Muhammad S Mansy³

Affiliations

¹ Radioisotope and Generator Department, Hot Laboratories and Waste Management Center, Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo, Egypt.
² Radioactive Waste Management Department, Hot Laboratories and Waste Management Center, Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo, Egypt.
³ Analytical Chemistry Department, Hot Laboratories and Waste Management Center, Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo, Egypt; Radioactive Waste Management Unit, Hot Laboratories and Waste Management Center, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo, Egypt. Electronic address: mohamedmansy_np@yahoo.com.

PMID: 33773202
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2021.109690

Abstract

The present study introduces a new approach based on an irradiated tin target's impurity to produce a¹²⁵Sb/^125mTe radioisotope generator. A prepared generator gel matrix of zirconium-silico-tungstate was loaded with 6660 MBq (180 mCi) activity of the separated antimony. The loading and elution method has been studied as a function of the concentration of H₂SO₄ acid solution. The effect of mild oxidant (ascorbic acid) in the loading and complexing agent (acetic acid) in elution was investigated to improve the generator's elution profile. A mixture of (0.5 M) ascorbic acid and (0.5 M) H₂SO₄ acid solution as a loading solution resulted in a maximum distribution of ¹²⁵Sb. In comparison, using (0.4 M) acetic acid as an eluent solution ^125mTe yield reached 88.7% and minimised percentage of ¹²⁵Sb breakthrough was obtained (<0.01%).

Keywords: (125)Sb/(125m)Te separation- (125)Sb/(125m)Te radioisotope Generator-complexing agent-mild oxidant; Elution performance.