Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
2002 International RERTR Meeting

LABORATORY RESEARCH ON BACK END ISSUES OF THE Mo-99 PRODUCTION

Falcon, M. : Russo, A. ; Schickendantz, F. ; Vaccaro, J.

Unidad de Actividad Materiales y Combustibles Nucleares - CAE – CNEA

ABSTRACT

The Argentinean National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) is now beginning to produce fission ⁹⁹Mo (parent of the radionuclide ^99mTc, widely used in medicine) by irradiation of targets containing 20% enriched uranium. The reduction from the previously employed enrichment of 90% implies an increase in the mass of uranium necessary to produce the same ⁹⁹Mo activity. This, and the fact that the irradiated uranium has a very low burn-up, led to the decision of studying the feasibility of a method for the recovery (and later reuse) of the irradiated uranium, in order to reduce purchase and post-irradiation storage costs. This task is part of a project for to improving several aspects of the ⁹⁹Mo production process (including the recovery and purification of other valuable fission products, such as ¹³⁷Cs, ⁹⁰Sr and ¹³³Xe).

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