Abstract:
225Ac is one of the most promising therapeutic radionuclides for targeted alpha therapy. Its decay chain emits multiple alpha particles with high linear energy transfer, which makes it suitable for the treatment of small tumors and metastatic lesions. However, the wider application of
225Ac radiopharmaceuticals is still limited by the shortage of stable and scalable production routes. Proton irradiation of
226Ra through the
226Ra(p,2n)
225Ac reaction is one of the candidate accelerator production routes that has received attention in recent years, because it can be performed with low to medium energy cyclotrons and can avoid the long-lived
227Ac impurity commonly associated with high-energy thorium spallation. Nevertheless, the neighboring reactions
226Ra(p,n)
226Ac and
226Ra(p,3n)
224Ac can produce important radioactive impurities. These impurities affect the radionuclidic purity, cooling strategy, radiation field, and subsequent separation process. Therefore, in this work, the feasibility of
225Ac production through the
226Ra(p,
xn) reaction is evaluated, and a reasonable irradiation process window is determined based on FLUKA simulations constrained by experimental cross-section data. In this study, a FLUKA Monte Carlo model was established for proton irradiation of a
226Ra target. Thin-target simulations were first performed to extract the partial cross sections of the
226Ra(p,2n)
225Ac,
226Ra(p,n)
226Ac, and
226Ra(p,3n)
224Ac reactions. The calculated excitation functions were compared with available experimental data and recommended cross-section trends. The relative cross-section ratio
σ(p,n)/
σ(p,2n) was also analyzed to evaluate the ability of FLUKA to describe the competition between the main product channel and the impurity channel. On this basis, thick-target simulations were carried out for selected energy windows, irradiation times, and cooling times. The activities of
224Ac,
225Ac, and
226Ac were extracted, and the activity ratios of
224Ac/
225Ac and
226Ac/
225Ac were used as the main impurity indicators. The evolution of decay-chain nuclides during cooling was further analyzed to evaluate the total activity and the implications for separation and purification. The results show that FLUKA reproduces the general energy dependence of the main
226Ra(p,
xn) reaction channels. Although the absolute calculated cross sections are higher than some experimental values, the calculated
σ(p,n)/
σ(p,2n) agrees well with experimental data in the key energy region. These results indicate that FLUKA can provide a reasonable description of the relative yields of
226Ac and
225Ac. The thick-target results show that the 13-14.8 MeV energy window is favorable for
225Ac production. In this region,
226Ra(p,2n)
225Ac reaction is effectively used, while the high-energy side of the
226Ra(p,3n)
224Ac reaction is suppressed. The simulation also shows that an irradiation time of 6-10 d improves the accumulation of
225Ac and reduces the relative contribution of
224Ac and
226Ac. For a
226RaCl
2 target irradiated by a 100 μA proton beam in the 13-14.8 MeV energy window, the calculated
225Ac activity reaches 1.34 Ci at the end of 10 d of irradiation. After 8 d of cooling, the activity of
225Ac and its decay daughters accounts for about 95.6% of the total activity, which shows that the later-stage radiation field is mainly governed by the
225Ac decay chain. The cooling analysis further shows that
224Ac and
226Ac behave differently.
224Ac is mainly controlled by the incident energy because it is produced through the high-energy
226Ra(p,3n) channel and has a short half-life. It decays rapidly during cooling and has limited influence on the final radionuclidic purity of
225Ac. In contrast,
226Ac is more sensitive to the cooling time. The activity ratio of
226Ac/
225Ac decreases almost exponentially with cooling time. When activity ratio of
226Ac/
225Ac is 10
−3, it can be used as a reference criterion for high radionuclidic purity, a cooling time of about 8-10 d is needed, depending on the irradiation time. The results also show that the total activity does not decrease as fast as
224Ac alone, because
225Ac and its short-lived daughters, such as
221Fr,
217At,
213Bi,
213Po, and
209Pb, dominate the total activity after 8 d of cooling. The recommended process window is 13-14.8 MeV for the incident proton energy, 6-10 d for the irradiation time, and 8-10 d for the cooling time. This window offers a balanced condition between
225Ac yield and impurity control. The results also indicate that the separation and purification process should be arranged after sufficient cooling, and the continuous ingrowth of
225Ac decay daughters should be considered during product quality control. This study provides useful parameter references for the engineering development of accelerator-based
225Ac production using
226Ra targets.