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The ISOLPHARM (ISOL technique for radioPHARMaceuticals) project is dedicated to the development of high purity radiopharmaceuticals exploiting the radionuclides producible with the future Selective Production of Exotic Species (SPES) Isotope Separation On-Line (ISOL) facility at the Legnaro National Laboratories of the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN-LNL). At SPES, a proton beam (up to 70 MeV) extracted from a cyclotron will directly impinge a primary target, where the produced isotopes are released thanks to the high working temperatures (2000 °C), ionized, extracted and accelerated, and finally, after mass separation, only the desired nuclei are collected on a secondary target, free from isotopic contaminants that decrease their specific activity. A case study for such project is the evaluation of the feasibility of the ISOL production of 64Cu and 67Cu using a zirconium germanide target, currently under development. The producible activities of 64Cu and 67Cu were calculated by means of the Monte Carlo code FLUKA, whereas dedicated off-line tests with stable beams were performed at LNL to evaluate the capability to ionize and recover isotopically pure copper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At INFN-LNL (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare- Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro) SPES (Selective Production of Exotic Species), a new facility for the production of radioactive ion beams is being constructed at INFN-LNL (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro). Radioactive ion beams of neutron-rich nuclei with high purity, in the range of mass between 80 and 160 amu, will be produced by nuclear reactions induced by 40 MeV protons from a cyclotron. The goal of the ISOLPHARM project is to provide a feasibility study for an innovative technology for the production of extremely very high specific activity beta emitting radionuclides as radiopharmaceutical precursors. The ISOL method, adopted in the ISOLPHARM project (a branch of the SPES project), gives the possibility of obtaining pure isobaric beams. In this way, no isotopic contaminations will be present in the beam and afterwards in a proper trapping substrate. The ground-breaking idea of the ISOLPHARM method was granted an International patent (INFN). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]