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Medical Isotope Production without Highly Enriched Uranium
better understanding of how this isotope is currently being made and how its decay product, Tc-99m, is used for medical imaging.
Mo-99 supply and supply reliability are discussed in Chapters 3 and 4.
Current and projected Mo-99 demand is discussed in Chapter 5.
Mo-99/Tc-99m production cost estimates are provided in Chapter 6. These estimates are used in the feasibility assessment that appears in Chapter 10.
Several considerations for conversion of reactor targets from HEU to LEU are discussed in Chapters 7–9: technical (Chapter 7), regulatory (Chapter 8), and general approaches and timing (Chapter 9).
The prospects and feasibility of converting HEU-based Mo-99 production to LEU-based production are discussed in Chapter 10. This chapter also contains the committee’s response to the feasibility assessment portions of the study charge.
Progress that is being made by DOE in eliminating use of HEU in reactors is discussed in Chapter 11.
An effort was made by the committee to develop chapters that could stand alone for the benefit of audiences who were not interested in reading the entire report. This results in some repetition of basic facts and concepts in the chapters that will be noticed by readers who peruse the report from beginning to end.
