Water extraction of technetium-99m from neutron irradiated porous molybdenum dioxide pellet

Hu, X.*; Fujita, Yoshitaka   ; Tsuchiya, Kunihiko ; Fukutani, Satoshi*; Hori, Junichi*; Suzuki, Tatsuya*

Technetium-99m (Tc) is the most commonly used radioisotope as a radiopharmaceutical and is obtained from the decay of molybdenum-99 (Mo). Currently, Mo is produced as a fission product of uranium. However, from the viewpoint of nuclear non-proliferation, a method of producing Mo by (n,) reaction of Mo has been proposed. MoO is generally used as a target. In this study, we focused on MoO, which is insoluble in water. We tried to extract Tc from neutron irradiated porous MoO pellets, using the difference in water solubility. Porous MoO pellets irradiated at the Kyoto University Research Reactor (KUR) were immersed in water and milked every 24 h for 4 days by leaching out Tc. The obtained solution was measured by -ray spectrometry and ICP-MS. As a result, we established a new production method of Mo/Tc generator with low Mo/Tc ratio using (n,) reaction.