Automatic separation of high-purity 89Zr based on a solid-phase hydroxamate column
摘要
The nuclide 89Zr (T1/2 = 78.41 h), which emits positrons available for bioimaging, has received considerable attention in nuclear medicine, with over 100 clinical trials underway. With the imposing clinical translation of related 89Zr radiopharmaceuticals, the high-performance separation of this radionuclide from yttrium targets on a large scale using an automatic separation device is becoming increasingly important. In this work, we used the CS-30 cyclotron to produce 89Zr via the nuclear reaction 89Y(p,n)89Zr and optimized the automatic separation process using the hydroxamate resin as column material. In multiple separation experiments, the hydroxamate resin efficiently adsorbed 89Zr in 2 M HCl and commendably desorbed 89Zr under elution using 0.5 M oxalic acid, with 89Zr recovery of 89.2 ± 1.9% from the irradiated 89Y target. More importantly, the 89Zr-oxalate solution exhibited a high radionuclide purity (99.99%) while maintaining metal impurity concentrations below the threshold of 0.5 ppm. The automatic separation device can efficiently and easily achieve 89Zr separation and purification.