Determination of the half-life of gadolinium-148

Nadine M Chiera; Rugard Dressler; Peter Sprung; Zeynep Talip; Dorothea Schumann

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110708

Determination of the half-life of gadolinium-148

Appl Radiat Isot. 2023 Apr:194:110708. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110708. Epub 2023 Jan 28.

Authors

Nadine M Chiera¹, Rugard Dressler², Peter Sprung³, Zeynep Talip⁴, Dorothea Schumann²

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Radiochemistry, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, PSI, Switzerland. Electronic address: nadine-mariel.chiera@psi.ch.
² Laboratory of Radiochemistry, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, PSI, Switzerland.
³ Department Hot Laboratory, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232, Villigen, PSI, Switzerland.
⁴ Laboratory of Radiochemistry, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, PSI, Switzerland; Center for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences ETH-PSI-USZ, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, PSI, Switzerland.

PMID: 36731388
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110708

Abstract

The half-life of the alpha-emitter ¹⁴⁸Gd was measured using the "direct method", in which the number of atoms is directly determined and their activity is then measured. Pure Gd samples containing megabecquerels of ¹⁴⁸Gd were obtained by reprocessing proton-irradiated tantalum material. Multicollector-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was performed to determine the amount of ¹⁴⁸Gd atoms retrieved. The activity of the ¹⁴⁸Gd atoms contained in the Gd sample was measured by means of alpha-spectrometry. The half-life of ¹⁴⁸Gd was deduced to be 86.9 years, with a combined uncertainty of 4.5%.

Keywords: ERAWAST; Exotic radionuclide; Gd-148; Half-life; Radio-lanthanide.