FLUKA simulations of 225Ac production using electron accelerators

Abstract

Targeted Alpha Therapy (TAT) is an active area of study worldwide. This technique has shown a potential in nuclear medicine to treat metastatic disease by alpha particles that deposit energy in small regions nearby cancer cells. 225Ac is an important alpha-emitting that can be used for cancer TAT. This radioisotope shows good potential for medical applications, therefore it is important to study ways of increase its production and availability. One possible path for the 225Ac production is to irradiate a radium target (226Ra) on a linear electron accelerator (LINAC). Isotope production studies could be implemented using computational tools. In this work, Monte Carlo simulations with FLUKA code were performed and compared to experimental results. We studied 225Ac production by photonuclear reactions using a 24 MeV electron beam LINAC hitting a tungsten electron-photon converter. Different energies and geometries were also simulated to obtain optimal production conditions. The specific activity values obtained with simulations had a good agreement with published experimental results.