Optimization of natural cerium irradiation time and cooling time to produce new therapeutic radionuclide

The use of radiopharmaceuticals to treat, palliate and control some diseases is very important in nuclear medicine. The choice of radionuclide for therapeutic applications depends on various factors such as half-life, specific activity, its type and energy. Praseodymium-143 is a radionuclide with a long half-life and the emitting of pure beta particles, a radionuclide with desirable nuclear properties for therapeutic applications in nuclear medicine, which can be produced indirectly by neutron irradiation of natural cerium. In this study, the production of Pr-143 was evaluated by both computational and experimental methods. The optimal irradiation time and the optimal post-irradiation time were obtained by simultaneously solving the differential equations of the decay chains for natural cerium target. The results showed that the optimal irradiation time is 5 days and the cooling time is 4 days. According to the relative difference of 4.6% between the experimental and computational results, the experimental measurement of activity shows good agreement with the computational results and it can be concluded that the above conditions are important for the production of maximum radioactivity.