Status of Mo/Tc production development by (n,) reaction in JMTR

Tsuchiya, Kunihiko; Sozawa, Shizuo; Takeuchi, Nobuhiro*; Suzuki, Yasuaki*; Hasegawa, Yoshio*; Kakei, Sadanori*; Araki, Masanori

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Technetium-99m (Tc) is one of commonly used radioisotopes in the field of nuclear medicine. JAEA has a plan to produce Mo by (n,) method, a parent nuclide of Tc in the Japan Material Testing Reactor (JMTR). In case of Japan, all of Mo are imported from foreign countries, therefore JAEA has been performed the R&D on production of Mo/Tc in JMTR with Japanese industrial users under the cooperation programs. The R&D on Mo/Tc production was adopted as new project in Tsukuba International Strategic Zone, last year. In this project, various devices for production of Tc solution will be equipped the hot cell in the JMTR Hot laboratory and the following R&D items will be carried out for the production improvement. (1) Fabrication of irradiation target such as the sintered MoO pellets, (2) Separation and concentration of Tc by the solvent extraction from Mo solution, (3) Examination of Tc solution for a medicine, and (4) Mo recycling from Mo generator and solution. In this symposium, the status of the R&D and construction of the PIE devices under this project will be introduced for the production of Mo/Tc production improvement.