Study of new routes for purification of fission 99Mo

Abstract

99mTc is the most applied medical radioisotope in the world, especially for cancer diagnosis procedures. It is provided by 99Mo radioactive decay, which is one of the fission products from the uranium irradiation in nuclear reactors. At the main production plants, the 99Mo chemical processing may be lined up in several steps to separate it from other fission products according to the features of the used targets or the local requirements as well. In this work, two routes of 99Mo purification, MR1, and MR2, were purposed as an alternative to be set up in the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor project (BMR). The MR1 route was performed by three chromatographic columns packed with Dowex 1x8 resin, Chelex resin, and alumina, respectively. The route MR2 was carried out also by chromatography applying two columns filled with Dowex 1x8 and alumina respectively, but including a sublimation process performed in a tubular oven under programmed conditions. The final yield for the MR1 route was 84.4 % and the overall time process was about 7 hours, whereas the MR2 route reached 75.3 % in 9 hours.