! The availability of reactor produced radioisotopes relies significantly on aging foreign resources, leading to an uncertainty in the future supply of these lifesaving radioactive ingredients. The long-term goal of this effort is development of a platform technology that can be implemented in existing research reactor infrastructure nationwide for local medical grade radioisotope production. The proposed method takes advantage of radioisotope separation via nuclear recoil during the irradiation process to ensure a high specific activity radioactive product. A challenge with traditional radioisotope production via the neutron capture reaction is: the target isotope and the product radioisotope are both from the same element. Conventional separation techniques are not effective for separating isotopes of the same element, therefore at the end of irradiation, the result is a mixture of the initial target isotope (considered a major impurity) and the product radioisotope of interest. Small-scale research nuclear reactors operate at lower capacities compared to commercial production facilities, therefore obtaining the required radioisotope specific-activity (purity) required for medical applications is challenging and often impossible. To ensure a reliable supply of radioisotopes to meet the current and future demand of the healthcare and R&D communities, a patent pending plug and play platform technology for radioisotope production and separation is proposed. This innovative radioisotope production mechanism can be easily adopted by research reactors of any size for medical grade radioisotope production. The Proposed method is novel because of the platform technology that allows separation of the product radioisotope from the inactive target upon neutron capture, followed by immediate collection of the product. This contribution is significant to medicine since the collected radioactive isotope can be harvested during the irradiation and shipments of the radioisotope to a local radiopharmacy for drug manufacturing can be prepared with little time delay, providing on-demand health-care. In this Phase I effort, the focus will be: (1) Design and fabrication of robust irradiation targets that: a) will result in an increased radioisotope yield b) can tolerate harsh radiation conditions without compromising structural integrity (2) Optimization of the plug and play prototype for improved yield of radioisotope recovery. (3) Evaluation target and prototype performance through reactor irradiation experiments. !
Development of distributed and on-demand radioisotope production technologies, that ensure a reliable supply of radioisotopes, and reduce dependence on foreign supplies is fundamental to healthcare. Specifically medical imaging and therapeutic treatment of life threatening diseases such as cancer require a steady supply of high purity radioisotopes. The proposed radioisotope production technology is designed to be adapted by a variety of existing nuclear reactors nationwide for high purity medical grade isotope production and distribution, to ensure no medical procedure is compromised due to isotope supply constraints.
