Recycling of 52Cr electroplated targets for 52gMn production

52gMn is a promising radionuclide for positron emission tomography (PET). Enriched 52Cr targets are required to minimize formation of 54Mn radioisotopic impurities during production with proton beams. The need for radioisotopically pure 52gMn, accessibility and cost of 52Cr, sustainability of the radiochemical process, and potential for iterative purification of target materials motivate this development of recyclable, electroplated 52Cr metal targets and radiochemical isolation and labeling with resulting >99.89% radionuclidically pure 52gMn. The run-to-run replating efficiency is 60 ± 20%, and unplated chromium from this method is recovered with 94% efficiency as 52CrCl3 hexahydrate. The decay-corrected molar activity of chemically isolated 52gMn for common chelating ligands was 376 MBq/μmol. •Manganese-52g is a promising radionuclide for positron emission tomography.•Enriched 52Cr targets are required to minimize formation of 54Mn radioisotopic impurities during production with proton beams.•Development of recyclable, electroplated 52Cr metal targets.