Production and radiochemical separation of 68Ge from irradiated Ga–Ni alloy target in 30 MeV cyclotron

Abstract Gallium-68 [ t 1/2 : 67.7 min, β + (89 %)] has application in PET imaging mainly for prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumours. Gallium-68 is generally obtained from a 68 Ge/ 68 Ga generator. It is therefore an important task to prepare 68 Ge ( t 1/2 = 271 days) radiochemical for the manufacture of 68 Ge/ 68 Ga generator to cater for the needs of various nuclear medicine centres. Germanium-68 has been produced successfully after irradiation of indigenously developed Ga–Ni targets in a 30 MeV cyclotron and chemical processing of the irradiated targets using an indigenous semi-automated module. The Ga–Ni targets were prepared by an electroplating method. The 68 Ge has been radiochemically separated from irradiated Ga–Ni targets using Sephadex G-25 column chromatography. The chemical separation yield and radionuclidic purity of 68 Ge were about 70 % ( n = 3) and about 98.3 % ( n = 3), respectively.