Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
2000 International RERTR Meeting

TARGETS DEVELOPMENT OF LOW ENRICHMENT FOR PRODUCTION OF Mo99 FOR FISSION

KOHUT, Carlos; de la FUENTE Mariano; ECHENIQUE, Patricia; PODESTA, Daniel; ADELFANG, Pablo

CNEA-2000

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this work is the replacement of the current targets of High Enrichment Uranium (HEU-90% p. 235U) by a uranium compound of low enrichment (LEU-20% p. 235U) for production of fission Mo⁹⁹, using a dispersed uranium Aluminum phase.

This work describes the manufacturing of UAl2 compound and the powder metallurgical compact process with an approximate density of 3 gU/cm3 in the targets.

With this load of uranium reached in the targets, Uranium Aluminum can be replaced the current miniplate of High Enrichment Uranium (HEU), without any geometric modifications and maintaining the current process of basic dissolution in the radiochemical process.

The Uranium Aluminide compound was selected due to its very convenient characteristic, specially in density it is 6,42 g/cm³.

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