Design and construction of a 113Sn/113mIn generator using irradiation of natural indium in a cyclotron accelerator

The purpose of this study was to design and build a tin-113/indium-113m generator with desirable characteristics and reasonable cost. A generator such as this can produce ionic forms of indium-113m that are suitable for labeling applications. The theoretical calculations were conducted using the programs TALYS-1.8, ALICE-91, and SRIM. Tin-113, the mother of indium-113m, the target of natural indium was irradiated in a 30 MeV cyclotron accelerator. The theoretical efficiency of 740 kBq/μAh was calculated for tin-113 production in the cyclotron. Finally, tin-113 was produced with an experimental efficiency of 555 kBq/μAh. Zirconium chloride and 0.05 molar hydrochloride are used as column adsorbents and generator solvents, respectively. The generator's step efficiency in a period of 6 months was 82%. The radionuclide purity of indium-113m from the generator was more than 99.9% and the average amount of parent radionuclide was within the pharmacopeia permissible limits equal to 0.0005%. The amount of interfering metal ions in the solution was less than 0.1 ppm. The results show that the in-house produced tin-113/indium-113m generator has suitable features and reasonable costs and that indium-113m radionuclides can be used in ionic form for labeling purposes.