Performance tests of radiation detectors for inspection of Mo/Tc solution, 1

Suzuki, Yumi*; Nakano, Hiroko  ; Suzuki, Yoshitaka   ; Ishida, Takuya; Shibata, Akira ; Kato, Yoshiaki; Kawamata, Kazuo; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko 

Technetium-99m (Tc) is one of the most commonly used radioisotopes in the field of nuclear medicine. In the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), the research and development (R&D) have been carried out for production of molybdenum-99 (Mo) by (n, ) method, a parent nuclide of Tc, with the Japan Material Testing Reactor (JMTR). On the other hand, the new project as "Domestic Production of Medical Radioisotope (Technetium preparation) in Japan" was adopted in the Tsukuba International Strategic Zone on October, 2013 and the demonstration tests will be planned for the domestic production of Mo/Tc with the JMTR. Thus, new facilities and analysis devices were equipped in the JMTR Hot Laboratory in 2014 as the part of this project. As the part of the analytical device equipment, the -TLC analyzer and the radiation detector connected with the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) were installed for quality inspection of the Mo/Tc solution and the extracted Tc solution in the JMTR Hot Laboratory. The performance tests of these devices such as detection sensitivity, resolution, linearity and selectivity of energy range were carried out with Cs and Eu as alternative radionuclides of Mo and Tc, respectively. In the results, bright prospects were obtained concerning the quality inspection of the Mo/Tc and Tc solutions using these devices. This report describes the results of those performance tests.