Review on the Application and Production of ¹⁴C in China

Carbon-14 is widely used in labeling and tracing, clinical disease diagnosis, research and development of new drugs, and environmental monitoring. In the 20th century, China carried out research on the production of carbon-14 nuclides and develpoed various preparation process for carbon-14 nuclides, but failed to realize large-scale production. In recent years, the supply of carbon-14 nuclides has become tight, which limits the development of related application industries. This paper briefly describes the domestic application of carbon-14, the production process methods of carbon-14 nuclides by nuclear reaction, as well as the current status of domestic carbon-14 production research and the construction of bases with carbon-14 production capacity. It is expected that a comprehensive independent supply of carbon-14 nuclides can be realized in the near future, which will help the high-quality development of nuclear technology application industry.