A strategy for intensive production of molybdenum-99 isotopes for nuclear medicine using CANDU reactors.

Technetium-99m is an important medical isotope utilized worldwide in nuclear medicine and is produced from the decay of its parent isotope, molybdenum-99. The online fueling capability and compact fuel of the CANDU(®)(1) reactor allows for the potential production of large quantities of (99)Mo. This paper proposes (99)Mo production strategies using modified target fuel bundles loaded into CANDU fuel channels.