Investigation on preparation and properties of gel type 188W/188Re generator

As one of the most important integrated nuclides for diagnosis and treatment in recent years, rhenium-188 (¹⁸⁸Re) has a broad scope in the clinical application. Due to the specific properties of such radionuclide, it was mainly provided by the chromatographic ¹⁸⁸W-¹⁸⁸Re generators. There is no doubt that the application of ¹⁸⁸Re in the treatment of various diseases depended on the development of ¹⁸⁸W-¹⁸⁸Re generator. Considering the high standards of such technology on radioactive activity of ¹⁸⁸W and impurity content, a ¹⁸⁸W-¹⁸⁸Re generator filled with the zirconium tungstate gel has been prepared in this work. The effects of molar ratio of chemical agents, pH, reaction temperature, drying methods, rinsing methods and other conditions on the synthesis of gel particles have been studied. Furthermore, a variety of characterization techniques were used to observe the macro-/micro-morphology and chemical structure of gel particles. It can be concluded that vacuum freeze-dried method could significantly increase the specific surface area, pore size and tungsten content of gel particle. In order to decrease the content of ¹⁸⁸W in the elute, a handful of acidic alumina was filled in the bottom of our ¹⁸⁸W-¹⁸⁸Re generator, an elution and purification integrated-generator was formed. During the first five processes, the nuclear purity of ¹⁸⁸Re solution was above 99.99%, the radiochemical purity was approximately 99.5%, the pH value was 5.0–7.0 and the average elution efficiency reached up to 82.7%. In addition, the leakage rate of ¹⁸⁸W was low as 1.60 × 10⁻⁶, and the peak of elute curve was located at 2 mL without the trailing phenomenon. This work lays a solid foundation for the domestic demand of daughter nuclide ¹⁸⁸Re, further makes an outstanding contribution to the application of the radiation therapy technology and the protection of people's health.