Survey of LEU based Mo production process

Tanimoto, Masataka; Amaya, D.*; Aoyama, Masashi; Kimura, Akihiro; Izumo, Hironobu; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko

Recently, worldwide demand of Mo became rises. However the availability and supply of Mo for the manufacturing of generators has been a matter of concern. Concern arose from several factors including, amongst others, the shutdown of some nuclear reactors at Canada (NRU, etc.), uncertainty of reliable operating condition for radioisotope production and difficulties in the availability of highly enriched U (HEU) target material used in the majority of the production facilities. As countermeasure for this issue, the HEU is not used but Mo production from low enriched U (LEU) is performed. This production process was developed in Argentina by the Argentine Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA). In the last ten years, INVAP has been working in the supply of Mo production facilities using LEU. This report provides descriptions for the detail technical aspects related to a Mo production system using irradiated LEU targets.