Production assessment of non-carrier-added ¹⁹⁹Au by (n,γ) reaction

Gold-199 is a promising theranostic radionuclide for targeted radioimmunotherapy as well as for scintigraphy and dosimetry. ¹⁹⁹Au can be produced in two methods in the direct and indirect routes of the reactor production via ¹⁹⁷Au(n,γ)¹⁹⁸Au(n,γ)¹⁹⁹Au as the direct or ¹⁹⁸Pt(n,γ)¹⁹⁹Pt→¹⁹⁹Au as the indirect method. This investigation described the development of a method for the reactor production of no-carrier-added (NCA) ¹⁹⁹Au through neutron activation of natural Pt in Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) at a thermal neutron flux of 3.5 × 10¹³ n cm^-2 s^-1. Also, in this paper, the activity of ¹⁹⁹Au has been estimated using the MCNPX code. In this case, first, the reactor core is simulated. Then the calculated results are compared with the corresponding experimental values. Moreover, two different chemical separation methods are investigated experimentally in details.