Medical radioisotope production with accelerator neutrons by deuterons

Tsukada, Kazuaki  ; Sato, Nozomi*; Watanabe, Satoshi; Ishioka, Noriko; Hatsukawa, Yuichi; Hashimoto, Kazuyuki; Kin, Tadahiro*; Takeda, Shinsaku*; Kawabata, Masako; Saeki, Hideya; Nagai, Yasuki

A new system has been proposed for the generation of radioisotopes with accelerator neutrons by deuterons, especially the production of Mo-99, Y-90, Cu-67, and Cu-64. Enriched Mo-100, Zr-90, Zn-68 and Zn-64 oxide samples were irradiated with neutrons, which were obtained by the C(d,n) and Be(d,n) using 40 MeV deuterons provided from the TIARA cyclotron. Mo-99, Y-90, Cu-67, and Cu-64 were successfully produced via the (n, x) reactions, and we clearly observed the -rays. Particularly, yields of impurity radionuclides were much smaller than that of Mo-99 and Cu-67, and therefore radioactive waste produced during chemical processing would be reduced compared with other proposed reaction systems. The present results demonstrate that the radioisotopes, Mo-99, Y-90, Cu-67, and Cu-64, can be produced by using fast neutrons, and strongly suggest that the reaction system is one of the most promising routes to produce high quality medical radioisotope.