Study of 99Mo production from low-enriched uranium (LEU)

Substitution of low-enriched uranium targets (LEU) for high-enriched uranium targets (HEU) to produce 99 Mo for medical purposes requires the study of the technological problems associated to new targets, which must introduce little changes in the target geometry and chemical processing with equivalent yields in 99 Mo. Silicide uranium LEU targets were studied for replacing the uranium aluminide HEU targets. Preliminary experiments for the uranium silicide dissolution has shown that it must be accomplished in two steps. In the first, the cladding is dissolve in a KOH solution and in the second, uranium and fission products are dissolved by using HF and H2 O2. The rate dissolution dependence on temperature and KOH concentration were investigated and a Teflon reactor prototype is proposed for the second step of the dissolution. (author)