TiO(2) Decorated Low-Molecular Chitosan a Microsized Adsorbent for a (68)Ge/(68)Ga Generator System

We report column material for a (68)Ge/(68)Ga generator with acid resistance and excellent adsorption and desorption capacity of (68)Ge and (68)Ga, respectively. Despite being a core element of the (68)Ge/(68)Ga generator system, research on this has been insufficient. Therefore, we synthesized a low molecular chitosan-based TiO(2) (LC-TiO(2)) adsorbent via a physical trapping method as a durable (68)Ge/(68)Ga generator column material. The adsorption/desorption studies exhibited a higher separation factor of (68)Ge/(68)Ga in the concentration range of HCl examined (0.01 M to 1.0 M). The prepared LC-TiO(2) adsorbent showed acid resistance capabilities with >93% of (68)Ga elution yield and 1.6 × 10(−4)% of (68)Ge breakthrough. In particular, the labeling efficiency of DOTA and NOTA, by using the generator eluted (68)Ga, was quite encouraging and confirmed to be 99.65 and 99.69%, respectively. Accordingly, the resulting behavior of LC-TiO(2) towards (68)Ge/(68)Ga adsorption/desorption capacity and stability with aqueous HCl exhibited a high potential for ion-exchange solid-phase extraction for the (68)Ge/(68)Ga generator column material.