Radionuclide Development

Radionuclide Development specializes in the development of production production for new and novel radionuclides. Targetry development is a first vital step to such methods, where target material is determined for a specific application, cross section measurements performed, target and target holders designed and the material irradiated at the correct proton energy. Chemical separations, involving ion exchange chromatography, are developed so that the radionuclide of interest can be separated from target material and other chemical impurities. Physical separations e.g. cryo-trapping and mass separation are of great interest as new technology brings the opportunity of these methods back into the area of rapid productions. As radionuclide productions are increasingly created from expensive enriched target material, the recycling of the target material from the chemical processing waste is also a vital issue and radionuclide development.

A typical target assembly used for the production of radionuclides.

Production hot-cells for the safe separation of radionuclides from irradiated target material.

A semi-automated production module for the purification of radionuclides


The production of dedicated radionuclides and efficient radiochemical isolation of the radioisotopes produced is a joint project of CRS and the laboratory of radiochemistry at PSI.