Neutronic and thermal-hydraulic analysis of fission molybdenum-99 production at Tehran Research Reactor using LEU plate targets

Efficient and safe production of molybdenum-99 (99Mo) radiopharmaceutical at Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) via fission of LEU targets is studied. Neutronic calculations are performed to evaluate produced 99Mo activity, core neutronic safety parameters and also the power deposition values in target plates during a 7 days irradiation interval. Thermal-hydraulic analysis has been also carried out to obtain thermal behavior of these plates. Using Thermal-hydraulic analysis, it can be concluded that the safety parameters are satisfied in the current study. Consequently, the present neutronic and thermal-hydraulic calculations show efficient 99Mo production is accessible at significant activity values in TRR current core configuration.