Selective permeation of 90Y from a mixture of 90Y/90Sr through diglycolamide impregnated supported liquid membranes

Highlights: • A new methodology was developed for the separation of carrier free ⁹⁰Y from ⁹⁰Sr/⁹⁰Y mixture. • A combination of supported liquid membrane and chromatography yielded medically pure ⁹⁰Y isotope. • Present method is simple and gives a good option to produce medically pure ⁹⁰Y isotope on a larger scale. An attempt was made in this work to evaluate a simple flat sheet supported liquid membrane technique for the separation of carrier free ⁹⁰Y from ⁹⁰Sr using two diglycolamide carrier ligands, (i) N,N,N′,N′-tetra-n-octyl-diglycolamide (TODGA), and (ii) N,N,N′,N′-tetra-(2-ethylhexyl)-diglycolamide (TEHDGA). Various experimental parameters were optimized to get selective transport of ⁹⁰Y over ⁹⁰Sr. At 6 M HNO₃ feed acidity, >95% ⁹⁰Y could be recovered selectively in just 4 h with both the ligands. Under identical experimental conditions, about 0.1% transport of Sr was also recorded which could be completely removed by passing through a Sr selective column to get medical grade ⁹⁰Y pure product. A mathematical model equation was also derived and experimentally validated for predicting the transport of ⁹⁰Y through membrane.