Production and separation of 64Cu and 67Cu using 14 MeV neutrons

64Cu and 67Cu, promising candidates for radioimmunotherapy, were produced by irradiating enriched 64ZnO and natural ZnO with ~14 MeV neutrons via the 64Zn(n, p)64Cu and 67Zn(n, p)67Cu reactions. No-carrier-added 64,67Cu were separated giving a yield of >90 %, a low radionuclide impurity ratio of 65Zn (65Zn/64Cu <0.01 %) and Zn decontamination factor of over 9.7 × 105. The labelling efficiency with 64,67Cu for TETA was 92–97 %. The current study demonstrated that the fundamental separation and the purification procedure for 64, 67Cu from nat, 64ZnO were established with high separation efficiency and successful labelling, together with high recovery of Zn samples.