Zevacor Molecular, a healthcare firm that manufactures PET and SPECT radiopharmaceutical products, installed the first and largest commercial 70-million electron volt (MeV) cyclotron dedicated to producing medical isotopes for the global market. Based in Noblesville, IN, Zevacor’s primary focus is to manufacture Strontium 82 and Germanium 68, although it is capable of producing a wide variety of other radioisotopes (atoms with excess energy) for both research and clinical applications.
“Each of these drug products have a certain affinity within the body and will preferentially go to the targeted disease,” said Todd Hockemeyer, Vice President of Quality and Regulatory Affairs at Zevacor. “It’s kind of like a car and driver. The driver is the radioactive isotope connected to a chemical, the car, which will go to a certain place in the body. Often a PET scan is combined with a CT scan to match it up with your anatomical body to see which organs the radioactivity, and therefore the disease, might be located in.”
The 70 MeV, 140-ton cyclotron was manufactured by Ion Beam Applications (IBA) in Belgium. The cyclotron is housed in an 11,000-cubic-yard concrete vault with 300 tons of reinforcing steel rod. It required more than 1,300 trucks of concrete to complete the project. On one Saturday, over 300 trucks made one continuous pour to create the foundation, as this “raft” cannot shift and have a deflection of more than 1 mm without degrading the energy beam.
Manufacturing Strontium 82 requires a lot of energy. Most of the equipment involved in the process is powered pneumatically with compressed air, but Zevacor estimates its annual power bill at $1 million, with three-fourths of that energy spent cooling water to keep the cyclotron and targets from overheating.
Viega ProPress was used on the HVAC lines
“The heat from highly purified water used to cool the targets and critical cyclotron components is transferred to another isolated chill system filled with purified water,” Hockemeyer said, “which is then cooled by a chill water system using water from the local utility.”
The cyclotron is housed with six other vaulted areas, each supplied with two separate sets of copper pipes—one for feed water to make the purified water supply and the other to extract the heat. Because purified water is extremely corrosive to copper, the copper pipe does not come in contact with that water. It only goes to the filtration system that purifies the water upon which it is transferred to the target through a PVC line.
“The integrity of that chilled water system is critical,” Hockemeyer said. “If the cooling system shuts down, so does our cyclotron.”
That’s why Zevacor chose Viega ProPress for copper over soldering.
“We understood how important it was to have highly purified water and a water containment system that’s reliable and doesn’t leak and doesn’t fail,” Hockemeyer said. “The cost of a failure is far in excess of any money we might shave off the installation process because we used welded fittings.”
Zevacor also chose Viega to reduce the danger of contamination and particles in the piping, which can become radioactive and create different problems with hazardous waste water.
Viega
800.976.9819
insidesales@viega.us
For the complete story, visit the Viega website here.
Related Stories
| Jul 29, 2013
2013 Giants 300 Report
The editors of Building Design+Construction magazine present the findings of the annual Giants 300 Report, which ranks the leading firms in the AEC industry.
| Jul 23, 2013
Tell us how you're reimagining the medical office building
"Obamacare" implementation will add thousands of people to the ranks of the insured, including many who formerly sought primary care in emergency rooms. Now, these patients will have coverage that allows them to more easily access the typical treatment channels—and that means greater demand for services provided in medical office buildings.
| Jul 19, 2013
Reconstruction Sector Construction Firms [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Structure Tone, DPR, Gilbane top Building Design+Construction's 2013 ranking of the largest reconstruction contractor and construction management firms in the U.S.
| Jul 19, 2013
Reconstruction Sector Engineering Firms [2013 Giants 300 Report]
URS, STV, Wiss Janney Elstner top Building Design+Construction's 2013 ranking of the largest reconstruction engineering and engineering/architecture firms in the U.S.
| Jul 19, 2013
Reconstruction Sector Architecture Firms [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Stantec, HOK, HDR top Building Design+Construction's 2013 ranking of the largest reconstruction architecture and architecture/engineering firms in the U.S.
| Jul 19, 2013
Renovation, adaptive reuse stay strong, providing fertile ground for growth [2013 Giants 300 Report]
Increasingly, owners recognize that existing buildings represent a considerable resource in embodied energy, which can often be leveraged for lower front-end costs and a faster turnaround than new construction.
| Jul 18, 2013
Do third-corridor designs actually work for healthcare environments?
A recent study of a nursing unit assessed whether the space's third corridor does what it was intended to do: reduce noise and distraction to patients and nursing staff.
| Jul 12, 2013
12 award-winning healthcare projects [slideshow]
AIA's Academy of Architecture for Health announced the recipients of the 2013 AIA National Healthcare Design Awards.
| Jul 2, 2013
LEED v4 gets green light, will launch this fall
The U.S. Green Building Council membership has voted to adopt LEED v4, the next update to the world’s premier green building rating system.
