The present invention provides a method for the generation of .sup.223Ra of pharmaceutically tolerable purity comprising i) preparing a generator mixture comprising .sup.227Ac, .sup.227Th and .sup.223Ra; ii) loading said generator mixture onto a strong base anion exchange resin; iii) eluting said .sup.223Ra from said strong base anion exchange resin using a first mineral acid in an alcoholic aqueous solution to give a first eluted .sup.223Ra solution; iv) loading the .sup.223Ra of the first eluted .sup.223Ra solution onto a strong acid cation exchange resin; and v) eluting the .sup.223Ra from said strong acid cation exchange resin using a second mineral acid in aqueous solution to provide a second eluted solution. The invention additionally provides products of corresponding purity and/or products obtained or obtainable by such a method.

Described are methods for preparing radionuclides, such as radionuclides having a high specific activity. The disclosed methods include irradiating target nuclide materials, in solution, with a neutron source. The radionuclides can be separated from the target nuclide material by providing a solid carbon nanostructured material, as a suspension of solids, proximal to the target nuclide material in solution and using the recoil to drive adsorption of the radionuclide onto the solid carbon nanostructured material to transfer the radionuclides from the liquid phase (in solution) to the solid phase (adsorbed to the suspended solid carbon nanostructured material). One or more surfactants can be incorporated into the solution to facilitate formation of a stable suspension of the solid carbon nanostructured material.

An isotope production system, emanation generator, and process are disclosed for production of high-purity radioisotopes. In one implementation example, high-purity Pb-212 and/or Bi-212 isotopes are produced suitable for therapeutic applications. In one embodiment the process includes transporting gaseous radon-220 from a radium-224 bearing generator which provides gas-phase separation of the Rn-220 from the Ra-224 in the generator. Subsequent decay of the captured Rn-220 accumulates high-purity Pb-212 and/or Bi-212 isotopes suitable for direct therapeutic applications. Other high-purity product isotopes may also be prepared.

The present disclosure is directed to a nuclear thermionic avalanche cell (NTAC) systems and related methods of generating energy comprising a radioisotope core, a plurality of thin-layered radioisotope sources configured to emit high energy beta particles and high energy photons, and a plurality of NTAC layers integrated with the radioisotope core and the radioisotope sources, wherein the plurality of NTAC layers are configured to receive the beta particles and the photons from the radioisotope core and sources, and by the received beta particles and photons, free up electrons in an avalanche process from deep and intra bands of an atom to output a high density avalanche cell thermal energy through a photo-ionic or thermionic process of the freed up electrons.

Provided is a process which allows uranium and molybdenum fluorides to be efficiently separated, said process comprising a step of providing a mixture containing MoF.sub.6 and UF.sub.6; a step of reducing the UF.sub.6 to UF.sub.5 in the gas phase or in a liquid phase; and a step of separating the UF.sub.5 and the MoF.sub.6 or a conversion product thereof which may be obtained by further converting the molybdenum fluoride to another molybdenum compound. In a further aspect, a process for the fluorination of metals or semimetals is provided.

The present disclosure provides a method and an apparatus for producing astatine-211 from alpha-particle bombardment of bismuth-209. The disclosure also relates to a method and apparatus of producing other radionuclides from target nuclides. The apparatus includes a plate having a recessed portion. The recessed portion has a generally inert surface of ceramic or metal, preferably aluminium oxide that does not react with molten bismuth. A bismuth target is placed in the recessed portion and held therein by a foil cover. The foil has a melting temperature greater than target nuclide (i.e., for bismuth, >271° C.). The foil and target nuclide are held in the recessed portion by a cover that is fastened over the foil. The cover has an aperture to allow a beam of radiation, such as alpha particles, from a cyclotron or other accelerator to pass through the cover to the foil and target nuclide.

A neutron activator for neutron activation of a material, the neutron activator being configured to produce neutrons from an interaction with a proton beam (7), the neutron activator comprising: a neutron source comprising a metallic target (1), and a Beryllium first reflector-moderator (4) peripheral to the neutron source and comprising a neutron activation-area (10) configured to accommodate the neutron source and the material to be activated, the neutron activation area (10) of the first reflector-moderator (4) comprising a bore configured to accommodate the neutron source.

A new column-based purification system and approach are described for rapid separation and purification of the alpha-emitting therapeutic radioisotope .sup.211At from dissolved cyclotron targets that provide highly reproducible product results with excellent .sup.211At species distributions and high antibody labeling yields compared with prior art manual extraction results of the prior art that can be expected to enable enhanced production of purified .sup.211At isotope products suitable for therapeutic medical applications such as treatment of cancer in human patients.

A method of producing enriched .sup.47Sc comprises irradiating a V structure comprising .sup.51V with at least one incident photon beam having an endpoint energy within a range of from about 14 MeV to about 44 MeV to convert at least some of the .sup.51V to .sup.47Sc and form a .sup.47Sc-containing structure. The .sup.47Sc of the .sup.47Sc-containing structure is separated from additional components of the .sup.47Sc-containing structure using a chromatography process. Systems and apparatuses for producing enriched .sup.47Sc are also described.

An apparatus for producing Pb-212. The apparatus comprises an emanation box that comprises an emanation source comprising a porous non-reactive material. The emanation box receives at least one of Th-228 and Ra-224, wherein the at least one of Th-228 and Ra-224 decays to Rn-220 within the emanation box. The apparatus further includes a carrier gas feed coupled to the emanation box. The carrier gas feed directs an inert gas into the emanation box and the inert gas carries the Rn-220 out of the emanation box through a carrier gas exit port of the emanation box. The apparatus also includes one or more Rn-220 targets coupled to the carrier gas exit port. The carrier gas carries the Rn-220 from the emanation box to the one or more Rn-220 targets and the Rn-220 decays into Pb-212 within the one or more Rn-220 targets. The Pb-212 is directed into the Pb-212 collection container.