Recovery of high specific activity molybdenum-99 from accelerator-induced fission on low-enriched uranium for technetium-99m generators

M Alex Brown; Nathan Johnson; Artem V Gelis; Milan Stika; Anna G Servis; Alex Bakken; Christine Krizmanich; Kristin Shannon; Peter Kozak; Amanda Barnhart; Chad Denbrock; Nicolas Luciani; Terry Grimm; Peter Tkac

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-92704-z

Recovery of high specific activity molybdenum-99 from accelerator-induced fission on low-enriched uranium for technetium-99m generators

Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 24;11(1):13292. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-92704-z.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Chemical and Fuel Cycle Technologies, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S Cass Ave, Lemont, IL, 60439, USA.
² Niowave, Inc., 1012 N Walnut St., Lansing, MI, 48906, USA.
³ Radiochemistry Department, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, 89154, USA. artem.gelis@unlv.edu.
⁴ Niowave, Inc., 1012 N Walnut St., Lansing, MI, 48906, USA. grimm@niowaveinc.com.
⁵ Chemical and Fuel Cycle Technologies, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S Cass Ave, Lemont, IL, 60439, USA. tkac@anl.gov.

Abstract

A new process was developed to recover high specific activity (no carrier added) ⁹⁹Mo from electron-accelerator irradiated U₃O₈ or uranyl sulfate targets. The process leverages a novel solvent extraction scheme to recover Mo using di(2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid following uranium and transuranics removal with tri-n-butyl phosphate. An anion-exchange concentration column step provides a final purification, generating pure ⁹⁹Mo intended for making ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc generators. The process was demonstrated with irradiated uranium targets resulting in more than 95% ⁹⁹Mo recovery and without presence of fission products or actinides in the product.