Fluorine-18

Encyclopedia : F : FL : FLU : Fluorine-18

Fluorine-18 is a fluorine radioisotope which is an important source of positrons. It has a mass of 18.0009380(6) u and its half-life is 109.771(20) min

Flourine-18 is an important isotope in the radiopharmaceutical industry, and is primarily synthesized into FDG for use in Positron Emission Tomography (PET Scans). It is subsitituted for Hydrogen and used a tracer in the scan. Its significance is due to both its short half-life and the emission of positrons when decaying (PET being Positron Emission tomography). In the radiopharmaceutical industry, it is made using either a cyclotron or linear particle accelerator by bombarding oxygen-18 with hydrogen ions.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.