Impurity Monitoring During Multiple Recycles of Mo Targets for Accelerator-Produced Mo-99

Technical Report · Sun Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/2221816· OSTI ID:2221816

Bettinardi, David J. ^[1]; Chemerisov, Sergey ^[1]; Tkac, Peter ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Accelerator-based methods have been developed to produce kilocurie quantities of low specific-activity ⁹⁹Mo from Mo targets. The irradiation of enriched ¹⁰⁰Mo, in place of ^natMo, greatly reduces the activity of side-reaction products formed from other Mo isotopes, which have a fairly wide distribution of natural isotopic abundances: ⁹²Mo (14.8%), ⁹⁴Mo (9.3%), ⁹⁵Mo (15.9%), ⁹⁶Mo (16.7%), ⁹⁷Mo (9.5%), and ⁹⁸Mo (21.4%). The side-reaction impurities of chief concern are ^91mNb and ⁸⁸Zr/⁸⁸Y (from ⁹²Mo), ^92mNb (from ⁹⁴Mo), and ⁹⁵Nb, ⁹⁶Nb, and ⁹⁷Nb (from ⁹⁸Mo). The new production technologies also require new chemical processing and purification schemes that emphasize low-waste recycling of the expensive, enriched Mo material.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 2221816
• Report Number(s): ANL--23/51; 186464
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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