NUKLEONIKA 2007, 52(1):17-27

A NEW METHOD OF PURE 111In PRODUCTION BY PROTON-INDUCED NUCLEAR REACTIONS WITH ENRICHED 112Sn

Emil Běták1,2, Edward Rurarz3, Stefan Mikołajewski3, Jolanta Wojtkowska3

1 Institute of Physics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 84511 Bratislava, Slovakia
2 Faculty of Philosophy and Sciences, Silesian University, 74601 Opava, Czech Republic
3 The Andrzej Sołtan Institute for Nuclear Studies, 05-400 Otwock-Świerk, Poland

We aimed at finding out a simple and reliable way of 111In production with the highest radionuclide purity from its grand parent 111Sb and parent 111Sn nuclei, produced by the 112Sn(p,2n)111Sb and 112Sn(p,pn)111Sn reactions, respectively. The target was a metallic 112Sn sample enriched to 84%. We have measured activation cross sections for seven reactions on an enriched 112Sn sample induced by 23.6 ± 0.8 MeV energy protons. Gamma-ray spectroscopy with high-purity germanium detectors has been used.
We also identified the activities of 55Co (T1/2 = 17.5 h) and 60Cu (T1/2 = 23.7 min) in proton beam monitoring Ni foils, induced in the natNi(p,X)55Co and natNi(p,X)60Cu reactions at 22.8 MeV proton energy. The cross sections determined for these reactions are: s[natNi(p,X)55Co] = 36.6 ± 4 mb and s[natNi(p,X)60Cu] = 64.4 ± 7 mb. The measured cross sections of reactions on tin isotopes are: s[112Sn(p,n)112Sb] = 4 ± 0.8 mb; s[112Sn(p,2n)111Sb] = 182 ± 26 mb; s[112Sn(p,pn)111Sn] = 307 ± 35 mb; s[114Sn(p,2n)113Sb] = 442 ± 52 mb; s[117Sn(p,n)117Sb] = 15 ± 3 mb; s[117Sn(p,p’g)117mSn] = 0.37 ± 0.06 mb; s[115Sn(p,2p)114m2In] = 0.01 ± 0.002 mb. Our measurements indicated the expected yield of the 111In production to be 46 MBq/mAh (1.2 mCi/mAh). The contamination of 111In by the undesired nuclide 114m2In was determined and belongs to the smallest ones found in the literature. The measured cross sections were compared with theoretical calculations by two top-level nuclear reaction codes EMPIRE and TALYS.