Potential column chromatography for ionic Ga-68. II. Organic ion exchangers as chromatographic supports

A potential Ge-68 → Ga-68 generator system, based on the adsorption of Ge-68 from a dilute hydrofluoric acid eluent onto a commercially available organic anion-exchange resin, is described. The distribution coefficients between the resin and dilute hydrofluoric acid were measured for germanium and gallium, and the breakthrough of germanium from a generator column determined. Using 0.01 N HF, the K/sub D/ values are 27 and > 4000 for gallium and germanium, respectively. Gallium-68 can be quantitatively collected with 4 ml of 0.01 N HF. After neutralization, this provides a biologically safe concentration of NaF for injection. The breakthrough levels of germanium-68 remain lower than 10-4 for up to 600 collections