Preparation of High Specific Activity Strontium-89 Solution in High Flux Engineering Test Reactor

⁸⁹SrCl₂ is an important radioactive drug for the bone metastasis. It is included in the new pharmacopoeia in 2015 and has a promising future in the market. Depending on the high flux engineering test reactor(HFETR), the process of preparation of high specific activity ⁸⁹SrCl₂ solution by nuclear reaction ⁸⁸Sr(n, γ)⁸⁹Sr was studied. High purity enriched ⁸⁸SrCO₃ was used as target material and irradiated for 56 days under the condition of thermal neutron fluence rate about 2×10¹⁴ n•cm^-2•s^-1. After dissolution and filtration, the colorless ⁸⁹SrCl2 solution was obtained. The specific activity of ⁸⁹SrCl₂ solution was 7.77×10⁹-1.08×10¹⁰ Bq•g^-1, the activity concentration was 3.59×10⁸-1.21×10⁹ Bq•mL^-1, the gamma impurity content was 0.11%-0.14%, the Al impurity content was much lower than 2 μg•mL^-1(activity concentration 7.4×10⁷ Bq• mL^-1). ⁸⁹SrCl₂ solution had been tested to meet the requirements of the industry and could be used as raw material for the production of injection. The development of single 7.4×10¹⁰ Bq level preparation device of high purity and high specific activity of ⁸⁹Sr had been finished. This research is important for localization of isotope products.