Journal of Radiation Safety and Measurement

Journal of Radiation Safety and Measurement

Investigating the optimal conditions for scandium-43 radioisotope production in 30 MeV cyclotron via Monte Carlo simulation

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Sara Talebi 1
Alireza Azadbar 2
1 Department of medical radiation engineering، Lahijan Branch، Islamic Azad University ، Lahijan ، Iran.
2 Department of Nuclear Engineering, Lahijan branch, Islamic Azad University, Lahijan, Iran
10.22052/rsm.2025.255794.1083
Abstract
Scandium-43 (43Sc) is a positron emitter radioisotope that can be used in PET imaging by emitting 511 KeV (176%) annihilation photon and 372.76 KeV gamma ray (23%). In this study, the theoretical production yield of 43Sc and its accompanying impurities in the 43Ca(p,n), 44Ca(p,2n), 46Ti(p,a), 42Ca(d,n), 40Ca(a,p) and 41K(a,2n) reactions to produce this radioisotope in 30 MeV Karaj cyclotron were calculated by simulating the excitation functions of these reactions in TALYS-1/96 and EMPIRE-3-2-2 Monte Carlo codes, and the mass stopping power in SRIM-2013 Monte Carlo code and the numerical integration of the production yield formula in MATLAB in the energy range of 0 to 30 MeV, and were compared with the experimental results. 44Sc is a radioisotopic impurity that is produced in the 44Ca(p,2n) and 41K(a,2n) reactions and it’s practically impossible to remove it from the final product; it’s produced in the 46Ti(p,a) reaction and can be removed by determining the energy range; and it isn’t produced in the 43Ca(p,n), 42Ca(d,n) and 40Ca(α,p) reactions. The results show that for the production of pure 43Sc with the highest yield, 43Ca(p,n) is the best reaction for Karaj cyclotron; but to produce a pure product with a suitable yield and the lowest possible cost, the 40Ca(α,p) reaction is a better choice.
Keywords
Scandium-43
Karaj cyclotron
Monte Carlo simulation
excitation function
production yeild
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