Speaker
Description
Medical radioactive isotopes play an increasingly critical role in nuclear medicine. Accelerator-based production of medical isotopes offers advantages including simplified regulatory approvals, operational flexibility, system safety, and lower costs, making it an important production method. This study proposes a multi-isotope co-production system utilizing electron accelerators. The methodology employs direct electron beam irradiation of molten salt targets, obviating the use of conversion targets, thereby improving beam utilization efficiency. The unique flow characteristics of liquid molten salt targets provide superior thermal management capabilities, effectively addressing heat dissipation limitations of solid targets while enabling continuous online extraction potential. Compared to solid target systems, the liquid target system significantly simplifies target fabrication procedures. Additionally, this methodology allows simultaneous production of multiple medical isotopes through compositional adjustment of the molten salt, improving production efficiency. This study employed FLUKA Monte Carlo simulations to optimize the structural parameters of the molten salt target and evaluate the yields of medical isotopes. The results revealed that the saturation yields of the target medical isotopes reached: Tc-99m (48.77 Ci), Mo-99 (55.77 Ci), I-131 (17.41 Ci), and Sr-89 (8.35 Ci). This method provides a new approach and reference for the production of medical isotopes.
