TY - JOUR
T1 - Solvent extraction of Ac-225 in nano-layer coated, solvent resistant PDMS microfluidic chips
AU - Trapp, Svenja
AU - Santoso, Albert
AU - Hounat, Yassine
AU - Paulssen, Elisabeth
AU - van Ommen, J. Ruud
AU - van Steijn, Volkert
AU - de Kruijff, Robin M.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Separating medical radionuclides from their targets is one of the most critical steps in radiopharmaceutical production. Among many separation methods, solvent extraction has a lot of potential due to its simplicity, high selectivity, and high efficiency. Especially with the rise of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chips, this extraction process can take place in a simple and reproducible chip platform continuously and automatically. Furthermore, the microfluidic chips can be coated with metal-oxide nano-layers, increasing their resistance against the employed organic solvents. We fabricated such chips and demonstrated a parallel flow at a considerably large range of flow rates using the aqueous and organic solutions commonly used in medical radionuclide extraction. In our following case study for the separation of Ac-225 from radium with the chelator di(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid (D2EHPA), a remarkable extraction efficiency of 97.1 % ± 1.5 % was reached within 1.8 seconds of contact time, while maintaining a near perfect phase separation of the aqueous and organic solutions. This method has the potential to enable automation of solvent extraction and faster target recycling, and serves, therefore, as a proof-of-concept for the applicability of microfluidic chip solvent extraction of (medical) radionuclides.
AB - Separating medical radionuclides from their targets is one of the most critical steps in radiopharmaceutical production. Among many separation methods, solvent extraction has a lot of potential due to its simplicity, high selectivity, and high efficiency. Especially with the rise of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chips, this extraction process can take place in a simple and reproducible chip platform continuously and automatically. Furthermore, the microfluidic chips can be coated with metal-oxide nano-layers, increasing their resistance against the employed organic solvents. We fabricated such chips and demonstrated a parallel flow at a considerably large range of flow rates using the aqueous and organic solutions commonly used in medical radionuclide extraction. In our following case study for the separation of Ac-225 from radium with the chelator di(2-ethylhexyl)phosphoric acid (D2EHPA), a remarkable extraction efficiency of 97.1 % ± 1.5 % was reached within 1.8 seconds of contact time, while maintaining a near perfect phase separation of the aqueous and organic solutions. This method has the potential to enable automation of solvent extraction and faster target recycling, and serves, therefore, as a proof-of-concept for the applicability of microfluidic chip solvent extraction of (medical) radionuclides.
KW - Ac-225
KW - Medical radionuclides
KW - Microfluidics
KW - Parallel flow
KW - PDMS
KW - Solvent extraction
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85211353446&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41598-024-81177-5
DO - 10.1038/s41598-024-81177-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 39622906
AN - SCOPUS:85211353446
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 14
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
IS - 1
M1 - 29988
ER -