Supercritical CO2 fluid radiochromatography system used to purify [11C]toluene for PET

Abuse of inhalants in today's society has become such a widespread problem among today's adolescents that in many parts of the world their use exceeds that of many other illicit drugs or alcohol. Even so, little is known how such inhalants affect brain function to an extent that can lead to an abuse liability. While methodologies exist for radiolabeling certain inhalants of interest with short-lived positron emitting radioisotopes that would allow their investigation in human subjects using positron emission tomography (PET), the purification methodologies necessary to separate these volatile substances from the organic starting materials have not been developed. We've adapted supercritical fluid technology to this specific PET application by building a preparative-scale supercritical CO2 fluid radiochromatograph, and applied it to the purification of [11C]toluene. We've demonstrated that [11C]toluene can be separated from the starting materials using a conventional C18 HPLC column and pure supercritical CO2 fluid as the mobile phase operating at 2000 psi and 40 degrees C. We've also shown that the purified radiotracer can be quantitatively captured on Tenax GR, a solid support material, as it exits the supercritical fluid stream, thus allowing for later desorption into a 1.5% cyclodextrin solution that is suitable for human injection, or into a breathing tube for direct inhalation.