What is wise in the production of 99Mo? A comparison of eight possible production routes

The crystal structure of MoO2(O2)H2O

“…New production routes for 99 Mo and daughter isotope technetium-99 m ( 99m Tc), the most widely used radioisotope for medical imaging (Banerjee et al , 2001), are being developed to eliminate the need for expensive nuclear reactors requiring highly enriched uranium and the associated security and nuclear waste concerns (Van Noorden, 2013; Wolterbeek et al , 2014). Emerging methods such as linear accelerator (LINAC) and other accelerator-based production of 99 Mo (Galea et al , 2014; Hoedl and Updegraff, 2015) require complementary chemical processes for isotope separation and molybdenum recycling to make these alternative production routes viable (McAlister and Horwitz, 2009; Chattopadhyay et al , 2010; Tkac and Vandergrift, 2016).…”

99Mo recoil atoms yield in the 100Mo(p,x) reaction on cyclotron irradiation of Mo nanofilms

“…That means the specific activity (SA) of 99 Mo requested must be 10 4 Ci·g −1 , 10 3 Ci·g −1 , and 10 Ci·g −1 for generators in North America, Europe, and the rest of the world, respectively. 10 The same review based upon collected production data gives evidence that the specific activity of 99 Mo produced by reaction 98 Mo(n,γ) 99 Mo can reach 2 Ci·g −1 and that from reaction 100 Mo(p,pn) 99 Mo is 3 Ci·g −1 . In other words, the SA of 99 Mo produced by these reactions is too low to be useful even in existing small commercial 0.2 Ci 99m Tc generators.…”

“…The main characteristics of generators available on the market vary depending upon the region concerned: North America demands up to 200 Ci of 99 Mo per generator, Europe chiefly requires up to 20 Ci of 99 Mo per generator, while the rest of the world generally operates with up to 0.2 Ci of 99 Mo per generator. That means the specific activity (SA) of 99 Mo requested must be 10 4 Ci·g −1 , 10 3 Ci·g −1 , and 10 Ci·g −1 for generators in North America, Europe, and the rest of the world, respectively . The same review based upon collected production data gives evidence that the specific activity of 99 Mo produced by reaction 98 Mo(n,γ) 99 Mo can reach 2 Ci·g −1 and that from reaction 100 Mo(p,pn) 99 Mo is 3 Ci·g −1 .…”

Estimation of 99Mo production rates from natural molybdenum in research reactors

“…Both papers stress the dominance of the epithermal contribution to the activation rate. Wolterbeek et al point out that the epithermal contribution is sometimes overlooked when this production route is compared to others [9]. …”