Recycling of 52Cr electroplated targets for 52gMn production

Abstract

^52gMn is a promising radionuclide for positron emission tomography (PET). Enriched ⁵²Cr targets are required to minimize formation of ⁵⁴Mn radioisotopic impurities during production with proton beams. The need for radioisotopically pure ^52gMn, accessibility and cost of ⁵²Cr, sustainability of the radiochemical process, and potential for iterative purification of target materials motivate this development of recyclable, electroplated ⁵²Cr metal targets and radiochemical isolation and labeling with resulting >99.89% radionuclidically pure ^52gMn. The run-to-run replating efficiency is 60 ± 20%, and unplated chromium from this method is recovered with 94% efficiency as ⁵²CrCl₃ hexahydrate. The decay-corrected molar activity of chemically isolated ^52gMn for common chelating ligands was 376 MBq/μmol.

Keywords: (52)Cr recycling; (52g)Mn production; Chromium electroplating; Cyclotron radionuclide production; Positron emission tomography.