MOEX: Solvent extraction approach for recycling enriched ⁹⁸Mo/¹⁰⁰Mo material

ABSTRACT

Several promising pathways exist for the production of ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc using enriched ⁹⁸Mo or ¹⁰⁰Mo. Use of Mo targets requires a major change in current generator technology, and the necessity for an efficient recycle pathway to recover valuable enriched Mo material. High recovery yields, purity, suitable chemical form and particle size are required. Results on the development of the MOEX – molybdenum solvent extraction – approach to recycle enriched Mo material are presented. The advantages of the MOEX process are very high decontamination factors from potassium and other elements, high throughput, easy scalability, automation and minimal waste generation.

KEYWORDS:

• Enriched molybdenum
• Mo-99
• recycle
• solvent extraction

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Yifen Tsai (Argonne National Laboratory) for performing ICP-MS analyses and Rick Lowden (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) for reduction of recycled material and production of sintered Mo disks.

Funding

Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA Office of Material Management and Minimization, under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357 is acknowledged. Argonne National Laboratory is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Chicago Argonne, LLC.

Additional information

Funding

Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s NNSA Office of Material Management and Minimization, under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357 is acknowledged. Argonne National Laboratory is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy by Chicago Argonne, LLC.