[3M01-04] Medical RI production 1

[3M01] R&D on Medical RI production using domestic nuclear infrastructures to achieve self-preparedness (2)

(1) Research Objectives and Summaries

*Naoyuki Takaki¹, Takeo Morooka², Anri Inaki³, Takashi Noda⁴, Shigetaka Maeda⁵ (1. Tokyo City University, 2. NucMed, 3. Kanazawa University, 4. Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, 5. Japan Atomic Energy Agency)

Keywords:Medical Radioisotope, Ac-225, Mo-99/Tc-99m, Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), Fast Experimental Reactor "Joyo"

The production technology of medical RI using existing domestic nuclear reactors had been studied to achieve the self-preparedness in Japan. The target nuclides considered are Mo/Tc, which is the most commonly used in medical diagnosis, and Ac-225, which is recently known as effective alpha emitting nuclide for cancer treatment named as “Targeted Alpha Therapy”.
Commercial reactor such as PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) is suitable for continuous and stable production of Mo-99 because of its high capacity factor and proper thermal neutron spectrum for Mo-98(n,g) reactions. Also, the experimental fast reactor Joyo owned by JAEA provides high energy and high flux neutrons which are preferable to produce Ac-225 efficiently by Ra-226(n,2n) reactions. Our study showed that single large scale PWR has a potential to stably generate more than half of the current domestic demand of Mo (~1000Ci/week) and Joyo generates more than half of the current world supply of Ac-225 (~2Ci/year).