Conceptual study for new Mo-production facility in JMTR

Kimura, Akihiro ; Iimura, Koichi ; Hosokawa, Jinsaku; Izumo, Hironobu; Hori, Naohiko ; Nakagawa, Tetsuya; Kanno, Masaru; Ishihara, Masahiro ; Kawamura, Hiroshi

JAEA has a plan to produce Mo, a parent nuclide of Tc. At present, radioisotopes are indispensable for a diagnosis and treatment in the medical field. Demand of Tc (half life 6h) used as a radiopharmaceutical increases up year by year. Moreover, the expansion of demand will be expected in future. However, the supply of Mo in Japan depends fully on the import from foreign countries. Therefore, it is necessary to supply Mo stably by the domestic production. There are two methods of Mo (half life 65.9h) production; the one is the nuclear fission (n,fiss) method, and the other is the (n,) method using the Mo target. Mo production in the JMTR with the (n,) method was studied and evaluated. As a result, it was found that the partial amount of Mo demand is possible to supply stably if a new hydraulic-rabbit-irradiation-facility (HR) is used.