title: Estimation of99Mo production rates from natural molybdenum in research reactors.
abstract: Molybdenum-99 is one of the most important radionuclides for medical diagnostics. In 2015, the International Atomic Energy Agency organized a round-robin exercise where the participants measured and calculated specific saturation activities achievable for the98Mo(n,γ)99Mo reaction. This reaction is of interest as a means to locally, and on a small scale, produce99Mo from natural molybdenum. The current paper summarises a set of experimental results and reviews the methodology for calculating the corresponding saturation activities. Activation by epithermal neutrons and also epithermal neutron self-shielding are found to be of high importance in this case.
authors.affiliation: Reactor Institute Delft, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 15, 2629 JB Delft, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: M
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0156-2457
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Blaauw
authors.affiliation: Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ridikas
authors.affiliation: Institute of Nuclear Physics, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, Ulug Gulomov Str., Tashkent, Uzbekistan 100214.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baytelesov
authors.affiliation: Instituto Peruano de Energia Nuclear, Avenida Canadá 1470, 41, Lima, Peru.
authors.forename: P S Bedregal
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Salas
authors.affiliation: Institute of Nuclear Physics of Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Ibragimova 1, Almaty, Kazakhstan 050032.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chakrova
authors.affiliation: RI Research Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 989-111, Daedeok-daero, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-353 Korea.
authors.forename: Cho
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Eun-Ha
authors.affiliation: Medical Technology Division, Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Bangi, 43000 Kajang, Selangor Malaysia.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dahalan
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacionale de Investigciones Nucleares, Carretera Mexico-Toluca S/N La Marquesa, Ocoyoacac, Mexico.
authors.forename: A H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Fortunato
authors.affiliation: Jozef Stefan Institute, Jamova Cesta 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jacimovic
authors.affiliation: Centro de Ciências e Tecnologias Nucleares and Laboratório de Engenharia Nuclear, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, E.N. 10 ao km 139,7,, 2695-066 Bobadela LRS, Portugal.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kling
authors.affiliation: Comisión Chilena de Energía Nuclear (CCHEN), Avenida Nueva Bilbao No. 12501, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Muñoz
authors.affiliation: Egypt Second Research Reactor (ETRR-2), Atomic Energy Authority (AEA), Abou Zabal, Cairo, 13759 Egypt.
authors.forename: N M A
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Mohamed
authors.affiliation: Centre for Energy Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Konkoly Thege Miklós út 29-33, Budapest, 1121 Hungary.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Párkányi
authors.affiliation: Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400 085 India.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.affiliation: Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute, 01 Nguyen Tu Luc, Dalat, Vietnam.
authors.lastname: Van Dong Duong
keywords: Epithermal neutron self-shielding; Mo-99; Research reactor utilization; Tc-99 m production