Routine production of high purity 81Rb by means of electromagnetic isotope separation

The 81Rb activity is generated by irradiation of natural krypton with 34 MeV protons. The strongly contaminated 81Rb is purified by means of electromagnetic isotope separation resulting in highly pure 81Rb. Further contaminating radioisotopes are not found. The important details of the specially-developed isotope separator are described. The isotope separation process efficiency is ≥ 85% (corrected with respect to radioactive decay). The batch size of ≤ 4 GBq at present can be increased by a multiple factor. The facility has proved to be very reliable. (author)