Facilities

The laboratories of PEPT Cape Town are situated at iThemba Laboratory for Accelerator-Based Sciences national laboratory, Faure, South Africa, which operates a k = 200 separated sector cyclotron, and a number of smaller accelerators. The cyclotron facility routinely produces both light and heavy particle beams for nuclear physics research, radiotherapy research and radioisotope production.

We have a dedicated laboratory for the radiolabelling of tracers and for nuclear chemistry research, as well as several preparation laboratory spaces and facilities for radiation safety and computing.

The PEPT Cape Town facility is located in S-block at iThemba LABS where we operate our two primary instruments, the Siemens HR++ PET scanner and ADAC Vertex gamma camera. It is managed daily by our manager and radiation protection officer, Michael van Heerden.

Our working space has a wide range of equipment to support PEPT experiments, such as a large external delivery port, trolley trucks, hand tools, preparation benches, weighing scales, stirrer plates, and three phase electricity supply.

To ensure the highest level of safety when working with radioactivity, we provide personal dosimeters, hand-held gamma ray detectors and highly sensitive contamination monitors.

Within the Department of Physics at UCT there is a laboratory dedicated to the development of hardware for PEPT and electronics and mechanical workshop facilities.