Proposal of direct Tc production facility at high temperature engineering test reactor

Ho, H. Q.   ; Ishida, Hiroki*; Hamamoto, Shimpei  ; Ishii, Toshiaki ; Fujimoto, Nozomu*; Takaki, Naoyuki*; Ishitsuka, Etsuo   

This study proposed the new design concept of direct Tc production at the HTTR for domestic demand, aimed to avoid the use of Mo-Tc generator and HEU target. With the high temperature at the irradiation region, Tc is separated directly from )Mo inside the reactor by sublimation technique without external electric heating. The foremost advantage of this concept is that Tc is produced and separated continuously without pulling out the Mo target. It makes the design of post-processing facility and the other handing procedures become simpler. Also, the risk of nuclear proliferation is kept to a minimum. With 1 kg of natural MoO target, the total activity of Tc in a year is about 6.810 MBq in comparison with 3.010 MBq of total Tc supplied in Japan in 2017.