Potential column chromatography for ionic Ga-68. II: Organic ion exchangers as chromatographic supports.

A potential Ge-68 leads to Ga-68 generator system, based on the adsorption of Ge-68 from a dilute hydrofluoric acid eluent onto a commercially available organic anionexchange resin, is described. The distribution coefficients between the resin and dilute hydrofluoric acid were measured for germanium and gallium, and the breakthrough of germanium from a generator column determined. Using 0.01 N HF, the Kd values are 27 and greater than 4,000 for gallium and germanium, respectively. Gallium-68 can be quantitatively collected with 4 ml of 0.01 N HF. After neutralization, this provides a biologically safe concentration of NaF for injection. The breakthrough levels of germanium-68 remain lower than 10(-4) for up to 600 collections.