Separation of no-carrier-added 66,67Ga produced in heavy ion-induced cobalt target using alginate biopolymers

Heavy ion activation of natural cobalt foil with 84MeV (12)C results in the formation of no-carrier-added (nca) (66,67)As radionuclides, along with their corresponding decay products, (66,67)Ge and (66,67)Ga, in the matrix. Because arsenic and germanium radionuclides are short-lived, after a cooling period of 10h only nca gallium radionuclides remain in the matrix. We attempted to separate the nca gallium radionuclides from the target matrix cobalt by biopolymeric calcium alginate (CA) and Fe-doped calcium alginate (Fe-CA) beads. A complete separation has been achieved by adsorbing (66,67)Ga and a lesser amount of bulk cobalt at pH 3 on Fe-CA beads, followed by desorbing cobalt from the beads with 0.4M NaNO(2).