A strategy for intensive production of molybdenum-99 isotopes for nuclear medicine using CANDU reactors.

摘要

Technetium-99m is an important medical isotope utilized worldwide in nuclear medicine and is produced from the decay of its parent isotope, molybdenum-99. The online fueling capability and compact fuel of the CANDU((R))(1) reactor allows for the potential production of large quantities of (99)Mo. This paper proposes (99)Mo production strategies using modified target fuel bundles loaded into CANDU fuel channels. Using a small group of channels a yield of 89-113% of the weekly world demand for (99)Mo can be obtained.