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).