Production and separation of manganese-54 from alpha-irradiated V2O5 target

Our aim was to obtain and isolate the carrier-free gamma emitter, 54Mn. Manganese-54 was produced via cyclotron activation in the 51V(alfa,n)54Mn reaction, and separated from HCl solution on Dowex-50 . 8 resin. The effectiveness of chemical separation was checked using the internal tracer 48V, produced in a cyclotron via the natTi(p,xn)48V reaction. The microcomponent 54Mn was eluted from the column with 3 M HCl, and vanadium with a 0.1 M HCl/ethanol/H2O2 mixture. The pair Ti/48V was separated on Dowex-50 . 8, using 0.03 M HClO4 as the eluent for 48V and 1 M HClO4 for natTi. The carrier-free 54Mn was of 99.9% radionuclide purity. In separation of the carrierfree pair 54Mn/48V, the recovery yield was 98.7% for 54Mn and 96.4% for 48V.