title: Production scale purification of Ge-68 and Zn-65 from irradiated gallium metal.
abstract: Germanium-68 (Ge-68) is produced by proton irradiation of a gallium metal target, purified by organic extraction and used in a medical isotope generator to produce Gallium-68 PET imaging agents. The purpose of this work was to implement a production scale separation of Ge-68 and Zn-65 that does not use organic solvents and uses a limited number of columns. The current separation approach was modified to use AG1 resin and/or Sephadex(©) G25 with zinc spikes to purify Ge-68 with near quantitative recovery. The purified Ge-68 meets DOE specifications. Methods utilizing zinc spikes resulted in the purist Ge-68 produced at Brookhaven National Lab with no other impurities by ICP-OES. During process optimization approximately 2.5 Ci of Ge-68 was purified utilizing the different processing methods, and the material was sold to the Nuclear Medicine community between 2012-2013.
authors.affiliation: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bldg 801, Upton, NY 11973, USA. Electronic address: jfitzsimmons@bnl.gov.
authors.forename: Jonathan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Fitzsimmons
authors.affiliation: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bldg 801, Upton, NY 11973, USA.
authors.forename: Leonard
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mausner
keywords: (68)Ga; (68)Ge; Gallium-68; Germanium-68; Radiochemical separation