Production of [18F] fluoride with a high-current two layer spherical gold target

A new automated target for high yield production of aqueous [18F] fluoride at high beam currents has been constructed for a cyclotron at NRCAM in Karaj (Cyclone 30). It consists of one small golden sphere inside another target chamber, mounted into a special holder, which provides rapid cooling by water flow around and inside the sphere. The target is irradiated with 28 MeV protons. The incident energy on the target chamber is 18 MeV. This target is operated without external overpressure and has been tested for beam currents up to 60 ěA. The measured target yield is 80% of the theoretically calculated yield of 18F, which is used for the synthesis of [18F] 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose.