Acid resistant zirconium phosphate for the long term application of 68 Ge/ 68 Ga generator system

Abstract The 68 Ge/ 68 Ga generator system is an excellent source for producing ready-to-use Ga-68 in clinical Positron Emission Tomography (PET) applications. The column adsorbent is the key component for the 68 Ge/ 68 Ga generator system. Therefore, several studies have been conducted to identify column materials with a stable and superior elution yield in an acidic eluent (0.1 N HCl solution). In this study, four different zirconium phosphates were synthesized with a particle size of 200–800 nm, pore-size of 55∼190 A and surface area of 0.72–268 m 2  g −1 . Synthesized and studied amorphous zirconium phosphate (ZrP-1) exhibited excellent acid resistant properties for the 0.1 N HCl eluent and a large surface area of 268 m 2  g −1 . Amorphous ZrP-1 showed a good Ga-68 elution yield of 74% in 0.1 N HCl eluent accompanying extraordinary low breakthrough of Ge-68 (0.007%).