Cross section measurements for the production of 49,51Cr and 47Sc from proton irradiation of natural vanadium up to 24 MeV

Scandium-47 is a promising radionuclide for targeted radiotherapy and is also an elementally matched therapeutic partner to ⁴³Sc and ⁴⁴Sc, which are suitable for Positron Emission Tomography. The predominantly reported routes for the production of ⁴⁷Sc employ expensive enriched titanium or calcium targets to achieve high radionuclidic purity. This study reports measurements of the excitation function of the ^natV(p,x)⁴⁷Sc reaction at proton energies of 18–24 MeV to optimize bombardment parameters for the production of ⁴⁷Sc using this promising approach. The cross-sections reported here demonstrate that irradiation of vanadium targets can produce >99% radionuclidically pure ⁴⁷Sc with a proton energy of 24 MeV, albeit at modest yields.