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):