Development of purification of no-carrier-added 47Sc of theranostic interest: selective separation study from the natTi(n,p) process

Scandium-47 is one of the most promising medical radioisotopes, and its production and trace separation make it an attractive candidate for theranostic application. In this study, the production of no-carrier-added (NCA) Sc-47 through the Ti-nat(n,p) reaction and subsequent purification using liquid-liquid extraction was done for the theranostic application. The comparative separation of NCA Sc-47 after the dissolution of an activated Ti target using Di-2-Ethylhexyl Phosphoric Acid (HDEHP) in kerosene was evaluated. The extraction process was optimized in terms of the concentration of extractant, extraction time, pH, and reaction temperature to achieve the maximum possible separation. HDEHP is efficient and promising for rapid extraction and separation of NCA Sc-47 from Ti ions at low acidity (pH 0.85) with high extraction percent (> 99%), contaminated with 22.3% of Ti ions after 5 min of extraction time. Different stripping reagents were used to separate loaded Sc-47 and Ti ions. Firstly, 5 M HCl was enough for stripping the loaded Ti ions. Then the loaded Sc-47 was separated with a purity of 100% using 0.05 M NaOH. The obtained results find the HDEHP a promising extractant for efficient separation of Sc-47 from irradiated Ti target for preparing the Sc-47 radiopharmaceuticals for theranostics applications.