comparative studies of extraction chromatography and electro-amalgamation separation to produce no-carrier added 177lu by tehran research reactor

introduction:owing to its favorable radionuclidic characteristics, such as tl/2 = 6.73 day and eβ (max) = 497 kev and ease of its large-scale production using medium flux research reactors, lutetium-177 (177lu) is an attractive radionuclide for various therapeutic applications. no carrier added (nca) 177lu was obtained by thermal neutron bombardment (4×1013n/cm2.s) of 176yb target through 176yb(n, γ)177yb        177lu process have the advantage of preparing radiopharmaceuticals with high specific activity. so the existence of an effective lu/yb separation method is critical. methods: many researchers illustrated no-carrier added 177lu production. however, the present study is based on comparison between two potential separation methods, namely extraction chromatography and electro-amalgamation separation with respect to separation yield and radiochemical characteristics. results: the no carrier added 177lu separated from 176yb target by two extraction chromatography and electro-amalgamation separation methods. the effective parameters on separation lu/yb were investigated in two procedures. the 177lu production yield by extraction chromatography and electro-amalgamation procedures were 82% and 88.83% respectively. the no carrier added 177lu was obtained with radionuclidic purity of 99.99%   in two separation methods. conclusion: although both separation methods have exhibited promising feature, the study reveals that electro-amalgamation separation offers the advantages of higher yield of 177lu, simplicity and easier to operate for large amount of target and less overall processing time.