The ISOLPHARM project: A New ISOL production method of high specific activity beta-emitting radionuclides as radiopharmaceutical precursors

The ISOLPHARM project explores the feasibility of exploiting an innovative technology to produce extremely high specific activity beta-emitting radionuclides as radiopharmaceutical precursors. This technique is expected to produce radiopharmaceuticals that are virtually mainly impossible to obtain in standard production facilities, at lower cost and with less environmental impact than traditional techniques. The groundbreaking ISOLPHARM method investigated in this project has been granted an international patent (INFN). As a component of the SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species) project at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare-Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro (INFN-LNL), a new facility will produce radioactive ion beams of neutron-rich nuclei with high purity and a mass range of 80-160 amu. The radioactive isotopes will result from nuclear reactions induced by accelerating 40 MeV protons in a cyclotron to collide on a target of UCx. The uranium in the target material will be U-238, yielding radioactive isotopes that belong to elements with an atomic number between 28 and 57. Isotope separation on line (ISOL) is adopted in the ISOLPHARM project to obtain pure isobaric beams for radiopharmaceutical applications, with no isotopic contaminations in the beam or subsequent trapping substrate. Isobaric contaminations may potentially affect radiochemical and radionuclide purity, but proper methods to separate chemically different elements can be developed.