Parasitic production of Cobalt-57 for quality control use

Neale, Alexander James (2020). Parasitic production of Cobalt-57 for quality control use. University of Birmingham. M.Sc.

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Abstract

Routine quality control is performed in all nuclear medicine departments and requires image uniformity measurements of gamma camera systems. Cobalt-57 (\(^{57}\)Co) flood sources are well suited to this task due the energy emissions of \(^{57}\)Co being similar to the main nuclear medicine radionuclide of Technetium-99m (\(^{99m}\)Tc). One method for producing \(^{57}\)Co is proton bombardment of nickel.

An equally important isotope is Rubidium-81 (\(^{81}\)Rb) which decays to Krypton-81m (\(^{81m}\)Kr) and used in the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. Rubidium-81 is produced by proton bombardment of enriched \(^{82}\)Kr gas contained in a nickel plated target.

Presented in this work is a detailed investigation of cyclotron production conditions whereby both \(^{81}\)Rb and \(^{57}\)Co yields are at maximum and produced simultaneously. Production in this manner is seen by the author as novel and desirable as overall costs for producing both isotopes is reduced.

A number of nuclear reactions were investigated theoretically which were then tested experimentally. A comprehensive review of known data bases gave published reaction data. These data were used to make predictions around target yield and more importantly contaminant isotope yields.

A way to utilise the parasitically produced \(^{57}\)Co for production of radioactive quality control sources was also investigated. This showed the concept of thermal drop on demand printing of a flood source to give high uniformity required for flood source manufacture.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Masters by Research > M.Sc.)

Award Type:

Masters by Research > M.Sc.

Supervisor(s):