AUTHOR=Raposio Robert , Braoudakis George , Rosenfeld Anatoly , Thorogood Gordon , Bedwell-Wilson Juniper 

TITLE=Investigating an alternative sustainable low-enriched uranium target for the manufacture of 99Mo using MCNP6.2 modelling with CINDER90

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nuclear Engineering

VOLUME=1

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nuclear-engineering/articles/10.3389/fnuen.2022.978948

DOI=10.3389/fnuen.2022.978948

ISSN=2813-3412

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Introduction:</bold> Current fission-based methods of <sup>99</sup>Mo production use targets that are based on high output without taking into consideration the amount of radioactive waste produced. We examine the idea of using a low enriched target (&lt;20%) to reduce the amount of nuclear and chemical wastes produced by the manufacture of <sup>99</sup>Mo <italic>via</italic> fission of uranium-based targets.</p><p><bold>Methods:</bold> MCNP6.2 was used to model targets of 20%, 10%, 7%, 3%, and 1% enrichment for <sup>99</sup>Mo output and sustainability.</p><p><bold>Results and Discussion:</bold> The 1% enriched target at the lowest density of 0.2 g/cm<sup>3</sup> of UO<sub>2</sub> was found to have the highest sustainability score at 6 days irradiation but it had a low <sup>99</sup>Mo output. On the other hand, the highest output target was found to be 20% enriched with a density of 8.0 g UO<sub>2</sub>/cm<sup>3</sup> with an irradiation time of 20 days. Target security and safeguards concerns were modelled and found to be of minimal concern.</p>