Large-scale production of highly-polarized 129Xe

Rapid production of large volumes of highly polarized ¹²⁹Xe with continuous-flow spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP) ¹²⁹Xe polarizers is vital for high-throughput hyperpolarized (HP) ¹²⁹Xe lung imaging and emergent clinical applications with dissolved ¹²⁹Xe, e.g. brain perfusion. However, the production rate is limited by cell volume, previously between 300-1500 cm³. Here we present a custom-built ¹²⁹Xe polarizer designed with a SEOP cell volume of 3500 cm³ which can produce ¹²⁹Xe polarized to 35% at a Xe production rate of 1200 mL/hour, enabling high-SNR ¹²⁹Xe lung imaging of naturally abundant Xe and high-SNR ¹²⁹Xe brain imaging with isotopically-enriched Xe.