Wet-chemistry method for the separation of no-carrier-added 211At/211gPo from alpha cyclotron irradiated 209Bi target

We present a fast and effective wet-chemistry method, used to obtain the pure alpha-emitter 211At/211gPo (T1/2 = 7.214 h/516 ms), produced by 209Bi(α,2n) reaction in NCA form. It is a selective radiochemical separation of the At radionuclides from the target and the impurities, characterized by a radionuclidic purity close to 100%, based on the dissolution and the dilution of the irradiated target in acidic medium, on the extraction with DIPE, followed by the back-extraction with NaOH. As a result, we obtain a yield greater than 90–97% in a range from 0.75M to 2.00M.