Fundamental chemistry of astatine is one of the important topics for Targeted Alpha Therapy which considers 211At to be one of the most promising radionuclides. This element does not have any stable isotopes and as a result radiochemical methods must be applied. Relatively short ~7.2 h half-life and convenient ~1 barn cross section of 209Bi(α, 2n)211At reaction at ~29 MeV beam energy require fast and efficient separation procedure performed at cyclotron facilities. Liquid phase based chemistry usually starts with a target material dissolution in nitric acid, non-favorable conversion to hydrochloric medium, and liquid-liquid extraction into a series of conventional organic solvents. Our group has developed a chemical procedure allowing for efficient extraction of astatine directly from nitric media. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no studies on astatine behavior in the presence of non-conventional solvents, namely deep eutectic mixtures and ionic liquids. Moreover, the bismuth behavior under the same conditions also has been studied. Thus, consistency and minimization of a dose on personnel dictate development of automated systems to safely perform desired chemical manipulations. Taking into account that our group successfully converted liquid-liquid extraction method to a compact extraction chromatography column, the automation of such a system becomes feasible. These new results and details will be presented.

Non-conventional solvents for astatine and bismuth separation

ACS Fall 2021

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