A Theoretical Study of Copper-64 And Copper-67 Production using Cyclotron

Abstract

A theoretical study of the production of copper-64 and copper-67 using cyclotron were conducted using a nuclear reaction model code (Talys-1.6 code) to generate reaction cross sections as function of particle energies for various reaction routes which would lead to the production of copper-64 and copper-67. The excitation functions for 64Ni (p, n) 64Cu reaction data showed that an optimum proton energy range of 7 to 12MeV was suitable for the production of copper-64. Also the excitation functions for 70Zn (p, α) 67Cu reaction data showed that an optimum proton energy range of 13 to 18MeV was suitable for the production of copper-67 if low energy cyclotron are available. Reaction routes of competing products were also investigated. The result compared favourably with experimental as well as theoretical works in literature. Using the radionuclide production yield equation (Qaim, 2008), calculated thick target yield for 64Ni (p, n) 64Cu reaction in this work was estimated to be 376MBq/μA and that of 70Zn (p, α) 67Cu reaction is 6.3MBq/μA. The effect of certain operational parameters on the thick target yield of copper-67 was investigated. A numerical equation was obtained for thick target yield by employing standard integral method. The finding indicate that a cyclotron with variable energy up to 30MeV and with variable of 50-200μA is feasible for the production of this radionuclide.