Mo-99 Isotope Production Calculation of SAMOP Reactor Experimental Facility

Abstract

The calculation of 99Mo isotope production of SAMOP (Subcritical Assembly for 99Mo Production) experimental test facility using SRAC computer code has been done. The SAMOP experimental test facility is a reactor in subcritical condition fueled with low-enriched uranium in the form of uranyl nitrate solution, with uranium concentration of 300 g U/L, and driven by an external neutron source. The calculation method is using Standard Reactor Analysis Code (SRAC) which is a computer code package system applicable to neutronic analysis for various types and forms of the nuclear reactor core. The calculation results show that the neutron multiplication factor of 0.981 to 0.992 can be achieved with 30.2989 L to 31.4587 L uranyl nitrate in the certain core configuration of SAMOP test reactor. The 99Mo isotope production calculation for 6-day operation (batch) shows that the SAMOP test facility can produce approximately 437.03 mCi (16170.11 MBq) per batch, and the 99Mo production will reach a saturated condition at twelve day operation.