Generation of radioisotopes with accelerator neutrons by deuterons

永井 泰樹; 橋本 和幸; 初川 雄一; 佐伯 秀也; 本石 章司; 園田 望; 川端 方子; 原田 秀郎; 金 政浩*; 塚田 和明; et al.

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 82(6), p.064201_1 - 064201_7, 2013/06

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.82.064201

A new system proposed for the generation of radioisotopes with accelerator neutrons by deuterons (GRAND) is described by mainly discussing the production of Mo used for nuclear medicine diagnosis. A prototype facility of this system consists of a cyclotron to produce intense accelerator neutrons from the C(d,n) reaction with 40 MeV 2 mA deuteron beams, and a sublimation system to separate Tc from an irradiated MoO sample. About 9.7 TBq/week of Mo is produced by repeating irradiation on an enriched Mo sample (251g) with accelerator neutrons three times for two days. It meets about 10% of the Mo demand in Japan. The characteristic feature of the system lies in its capability to reliably produce a wide range of high-quality, carrier-free, carrier-added radioisotopes with a minimum level of radioactive wastes without using uranium. The system is compact in size, and easy to operate; therefore it could be used worldwide to produce radioisotopes for medical, research, and industrial applications.