Abstract:
The production of medical radionuclides such as
99Mo and
131I with low enriched uranium as irradiation target instead of high-enriched uranium is an irreversible trend. In this paper, the lattice transport code DRAGON was used to analyze the yields of more than 10 nuclides (including
99Mo,
131I,
90Sr,
95Zr and
239Pu, etc.) with different
235U enrichments, neutron fluence rates and irradiation time. And the composition and total specific activity of fission system were also studied. The results show that the specific activity of nuclides as a function of irradiation time is found to be different. Of which, the specific activity of
99Mo,
131I,
133Xe and 147Nd can saturate rapidly, the specific activity of
89Sr,
95Zr,
103Ru and
141Ce saturates slowly, whereas the specific activity of
85Kr,
90Sr,
99Tc and
239Pu can not saturate until 120 d. The specific activity of all nuclides as a function of irradiation time is unrelated to
235U enrichment, but the specific activity of the nuclides such as
99Mo,
131I,
90Sr and
95Zr is linear function of
235U enrichment. Specially, the specific activity of
239Pu increases with the decrease of
235U enrichment, and it implies that the effect of
239Pu should be paid more attention if the low-enriched uranium is used to product medical radionuclide such as
99Mo and
131I. Additionally, it could be noted that the specific activity of nuclides increases linearly with neutron fluence rate, and the slopes of different nuclides which are same group are similar. However, the irradiation time and enrichment of
235U have no remarkable effect on the composition of fission system, especially in the region of low-enriched uranium (content of
235U≤20%).