Analysis of Mo-99 production as function of CAMOLYP reactor power

Abstract

CAMOLYP or critical assembly for molly production is a nuclear reactor based on mixed uranium thorium fuels, which is currently being developed in BATAN Yogyakarta. This study aims to know how much the amount of 99Mo isotope production can be achieved on 6 days reactor operation as function of different power levels. The method is a calculation of reactor physics simulation by using MCNPX computer code. The calculation is done for the reactor core configuration of 23 thorium dioxide fuel rods in the outer ring with the total mass of 73.12 kg and 1.706 kg of 235U in the annulus. The analysis result shows that the CAMOLYP's 99Mo production can be formulated as linear function of the reactor power level in watt. From the analysis result, it can be concluded that the CAMOLYP reactor can produce 39.91 curie 99Mo at 1000 watts and 6 days operations. This analysis result indicates that the CAMOLYP reactor as a low power reactor has succeeded in producing 99Mo isotope which is sufficient for domestic needs.