Most of my posts have been about nuclear chemistry, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and radioactive threats to health and the environment. There is another sector of the nuclear industry that I have covered briefly that has to do with the production and utilization of specific radioisotopes for a wide variety of purposes.
The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will soon award eight million dollars to fund two projects that are intended to produce a domestic supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) without the necessity of using highly enriched uranium (HEU).
Technetium-99m (Tc-99m) is used in about eighty percent of the nuclear imaging procedures in hospital. The Tc-99m used in hospitals is produced by Mo-99. Mo-99 has a half-life of sixty six hours or about three days so it cannot be just produced and stockpiled. Most of the global supply of Mo-99 is produced in five reactors in Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, South Africa and Russia. If anything interferes with production in any of these reactors, shortages can quickly develop. Most of the Mo-99 is produced by bombarding HEU targets which raises concerns of proliferation. In addition, Canada's NRU reactor which produces up to forty percent of the global supply of Mo-99 is scheduled to stop operating in 2016 which will result in a big drop in global Mo-99 production from current sources.
Currently, the U.S. does not produce any Mo-99 so it is dependent of those foreign sources. The NNSA has been working with commercial partners since 2009 to develop domestic sources for Mo-99 that do not require the use of HEU.
NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes is slated to receive about five million dollars to continue work on the production of Mo-99 by neutron capture. Currently, NMR is using a research reactor at Missouri University to produce Mo-99 by bombarding Mo-98 with neutrons. Eventually, NMR intends to develop a linear accelerator that can produce Mo-99. NNSA has a cost sharing agreement with NMR that has supplied them with over sixteen million dollars of federal funds. NMR hopes to be able to start commercial production of Mo-99 in 2015.
Shine Medical Technologies (SMT) will get about three million dollars to develop a process that will use what is called sub-critical accelerator technology to produce Mo-99 via fission of low-enriched uranium (LEU). SMT has just received a one hundred and twenty five million dollar debt financing package for a healthcare investment firm. This infusion of capital along with the funds from NNSA will permit SMT to complete design and construction of a manufacturing facility and allow them to ramp up commercial production.
Mo-99 is just one of many critical radioisotopes in use today. Given the currently unstable global political and economic situation, it is a good idea to develop domestic sources of important radioisotopes just in case foreign supplies are cut off.
