Feasibility study on production of 99 Mo, 131 I, and 133 Xe in the different core loading patterns of Tehran Research Re
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Feasibility study on production of 99 Mo, 131 I, and 133 Xe in the different core loading patterns of Tehran Research Reactor using MCNPX 2.6 Safar Ali Safari1, Mohsen Tabasi1, Marzieh Ebrahimkhani1, Mohamad Amin Amirkhani2,a 1 Material and Nuclear Fuel Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, Tehran,
Iran
2 Reactor and Nuclear Safety Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, Tehran,
Iran Received: 12 February 2020 / Accepted: 19 May 2020 © Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The production of 99 Mo, 131 I, and 133 Xe radionuclides is very important for consumption in the field of nuclear medicine. Generally, the use of small core reactors is recommended for the production of large-scale these fission radionuclides. In this paper, we have considered three different core loading patterns of Tehran Research Reactor for the economic and optimum production of 99 Mo, 131 I and 133 Xe from low-enriched uranium. These patterns are the large core, the small core with beryllium reflector (SC-Be), and the small core with graphite reflector. Simulation has been performed by MCNPX2.6 to compute the safety calculations, neutron flux changes, and evaluation of mentioned radionuclides production. The results reveal that the SC-Be is more suitable than the others two, in terms of safety. In this core, the drop of thermal neutron flux after loading the mini-plate targets is 11% and the activity of 99 Mo, 131 I, and 133 Xe is 235, 227, and 592 Ci, respectively, at the 8 days after the end of irradiation. So, if the changing pattern of the small core is considered, the SC-Be should be suggested.
1 Introduction 99m Tc
is the most widely used radionuclide in the field of nuclear medicine; about 70% of diagnostic methods are performed with this radionuclide [1]. It is obtained from 99 Mo decay with a half-life of 66 h. The commonly production method is through fission of uranium [2]. In this method, the uranium target is exposure to the neutron flux of the reactor, and 99 Mo is produced along with the other fission products, including the 131 I and 133 Xe [3, 4]. Considering that the 99 Mo weekly consumption in Iran is 100 Ci [5], further study on how production of this radionuclide in Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) is necessary. Abedi et al. calculations [5] showed that 24 mini-plates of low-enriched uranium (LEU) can provide a weekly 100 Ci requirement of molybdenum. Various papers proposed the use of a small core (SC) reactors due to the fuel management and waste management in large-scale production of molybdenum by fission [6, 7]. The
a e-mail: [email protected] (corresponding author)
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Table 1 The main parameters of TRR [11] Parameter
Details
Thermal power
5 MW
Core dimensions (first operation core)
40.5 × 38.54 × 89.7 cm3
Moderator and coolant
Light water
Primary coolant flow
500 m3 /h
Fuel
U3O8, low-enriched U-23
Data Loading...
