# 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):
Supervisor(s)EmailORCID
Parker, DavidUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED