<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Stuart, Joe, Mike<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Yesterday we had a long-overdue visit from the DOE-ONP Isotope Program managers: Ethan Balkan, Isotope R&D Manager and Marc Garland, Isotope Program Operations Manager. They both work for Jehanne Gillo who is the Isotope Division Director as well as the ONP Facilities Director. This was in conjunction with the news that our consortium has been awarded a total of $800k to investigate the production of Copper 67 from Gallium. JLab will receive about $367k, VCU about $281k and New Mexico Tech about $170k. Our proposal was submitted in 2016, but we had received no feedback on it. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The visit followed the Agenda very closely. Here are a few comments on the day. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We spent well over an hour in the vault making the point that LCLS II and LERF operations could co-exist. They appeared convinced. The vault had been cleaned up and looked great. They also visited the LERF Labs, which are impressive, as well as the GTS, where Riad did a great job of explaining the magnetized beam R&D. This was an attempt to send a message to Jehanne that the LERF is a valuable resource that she should adopt and support. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The primary focus of the visit was whether we could deliver the scope of our two-year old isotope R&D proposal using the LERF. They had concerns about containment of the liquid Gallium if there was a spill. Apparently, LANL has been using Gallium for producing a different isotope and had problems. Ethan will send is the contact information so we can try and avoid rediscovering problems that have already been solved. Ethan and Marc seemed convinced that we could do the irradiation as proposed and that the LERF was a reasonable place to do that. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">They asked a lot about the future vision for the facility, whether we would have remote handling (it would be much later), the possibility for on-site separation (we showed them Lab 7 which could be a future site for a hot cell), and our plans for other isotopes (Actinium 225 was the subject of an Appendix in our proposal). They confirmed their interest in producing as much Actinium 225 as possible, as the current production rate will not meet the quantity needed for the anticipated clinical trials. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Marc Garland encouraged us to look into producing isotopes requiring higher energies (~100 MeV) where the LERF would have a significant advantage over copper linacs. He believes that industry already has access to ~40 MeV copper linacs and would most likely take over production if we demonstrated that our process is commercially viable (we are not allowed to compete with industry if a company declares that they wish to produce the isotope). Isotopes produced at higher energies would be less likely to have competition from industry. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We discussed the boron nitride crucible and they accepted the design. We need to maintain an absolute separation between the gallium target and all potential copper contamination. Ethan pointed out that kapton tape (which we proposed to use to seal the boron nitride crucible) contains copper - this was news to us. We will look for another material. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We agreed that we would test the entire shipment process from JLab to VCU with un-irradiated Gallium to make sure that we have tested out all of the steps. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">In the afternoon, we visited VCU meeting Jamal Zweit and Sundaresan Gobalakrishnan. We visited the hot cell where the irradiated crucible will be unpackaged. We discovered that the remote handling that VCU believed was in the proposal had been eliminated in order to keep the total proposal costs under $800k. Nevertheless, Jamal stated that he was confident that VCU could handle the 30 milliCurie that expect to produce without the remote handling. Jamal asked about additional funding and was told that this could be part of our next proposal in two year’s time, when hopefully we would have demonstrated that our production mechanism was viable and we could request funding for producing and separating bigger quantities. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Driving up in the car with Ethan, I mentioned my interest in trying to get Platinum Equities, who own PA&E Inc., our commercial partner in JSA Associates, to invest in creating an isotope production facility at the Tech Center. There was no push-back to this idea, so I think this is worth pursuing. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Our next task at Jefferson Lab is to define how the Isotope Program should be integrated into the lab portfolio. We now have funding, we will be seeking more, the program now needs organization. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">All in all, an excellent visit! My thanks to all of you who helped make it a success. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Andrew</div><div class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jun 11, 2018, at 3:20 PM, Andrew Hutton <<a href="mailto:andrew@jlab.org" class="">andrew@jlab.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Everyone</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We have a rather flexible Agenda tomorrow for the visit by Ethan Balkin and Marc Garland, the DOE Isotope Program managers. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(23, 54, 93);">9:00 am: JLAB Visit/Discussion and Tour</span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(23, 54, 93);">12:00 pm: Lunch/Travel to VCU</span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(23, 54, 93);">2:00 pm: VCU Visit/Discussion</span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div class="" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span class="" style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(23, 54, 93);">~4:00 pm: depart</span></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The visit starts with Marc and Ethan arriving at 9:00 am in CEBAF Center. I learned today that Michelle Shin will be accompanying them (she will be holding an SBIR meeting in the afternoon, so she will not come to VCU). Marc phoned this afternoon to tell me they will arrive in Newport News this evening, so they should be here on time. I will there to greet them at 9:00 am and I suggest that Mike Spata, Steve Benson and Hari Areti are also there. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Stuart and Joe Arango will “meet and greet” in the Atrium and then leave. Joe has a regularly scheduled meeting with Stuart at 9:00, but Joe will join us in the LERF vault after the meeting. Mike, Steve, Hari and I will accompany Marc, Ethan and Michelle to the LERF. I can take three people with me in my car; can someone else also drive? </div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We will go directly to the LERF vault where Kevin and Joe Gubeli will be waiting for us. I will pick up an SRPD this evening, and remember the JLab staff will need film badges. We should spend ~ 1 hour in the vault describing in detail the gun, how the LCLS II and LERF are compatible, where we intend to do the irradiations, how we will extract the target, etc. I also want to point out the demagnetization tests that Gigi is carrying out for CEBAF to show that the LERF is already being used for NP-related activities. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We will then go to the LERF Break Room and show the slides about the LERF Labs that we prepared for the LERF Workshop. Then we will visit the control room, the corridor to see the RF installations, and visit the labs (they are in pretty good shape at the moment due to a lot of hard work by many people). We will visit the RF area opposite the control room where there is a spare HPA; this is where we will test a magnetron when the SBIR company delivers a prototype (this is specifically for Michelle). Finally, we will go into the GTS to see the magnetized gun tests. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The message we are trying to send is that the LERF is being used for NP-related R&D already, and would be able to support much more. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Lunch will be around 11:45; everyone who can join us for a no-host lunch is welcome! </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Hari and I will accompany Marc and Ethan to VCU, I will take Ethan in my car, Hari will go with Marc in the DOE car. We should be at VCU around 2:00 - 2:15. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">This should be a very positive visit, let’s make a good impression! </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Andrew</div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>