Determination of impurities in the eluate of rhenium generator using hydrated magnesium oxide as the preconcentration agent

In recent years chances of using rhenium-186 and rhenium-188 as radioactive isotopes in diagnostic and therapeutic applications are increased very much due to the characteristic radiochemical and chemical properties of these two radioisotopes. In particular, chemical similarities between99Tc and99mTc pair and186Re and188Re pair make it easier to correlate the two groups of compounds. Rhenium-188 is generated from the beta-decay of tungsten-188 which was produced by double neutron capture on enriched tungsten-186 oxide. It is of great interest to examine the impurities in the eluate by radiochemical neutron activation. For this purpose, the preconcentration of the impurities in samples were necessary, and it was achieved by adsorption on hydrated magnesium oxide.