Project to boost radionuclide production wins Hang Design Award

A student project to retrofit commercial nuclear reactors to create a supply of medical radionuclides was chosen as the 2016 winner of the Daniel F. Hang Senior Design Award in Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering at Illinois.

“Reactor-based 99Molybdenum Fabrication,” a project of NPRE seniors Waleed Ahmed, Zhiee Jhia Ooi, Joseph Rajchwald, and Dan Strat, was conceived as a short-term solution to an imminent shortage of ⁹⁹Mo. A reactor-produced radioisotope, ⁹⁹Mo is used in radionuclide generators to produce technetium ⁹⁹m, which prepares radiopharmaceuticals for scanning the brain, parotid, thyroid, lungs, blood pool, liver, heart, spleen, kidney, lacrimal drainage apparatus, bone, and bone marrow.

The students maintain that a growing demand for medical radionuclides has strained current facilities’ capacity to produce ⁹⁹Mo. They further noted that the two primary facilities producing the bulk of the isotope’s supply in the United States are expected to cease operating within five years.

The students’ design called for molybdenum pellets to be activated by inserting them into high flux regions of the cores of current nuclear reactors. The students used MATLAB programming to model the reaction yield with consideration of decay schemes.

“From a physical and mathematical perspective, the production of ⁹⁹Mo via the in-core instrumentation system proves feasible,” according to the project abstract. “Further analysis shows that this method is economically feasible only when considering natural Mo⁹⁸ oxide as the sample.”

NPRE presents the Hang Award annually for the best senior design project in the department. The award is named for the late Prof. Daniel F. Hang, who was passionate about nuclear engineering design, and emphasized the coupling of economics analysis with successful design work. Professor Hang also strongly advocated students becoming licensed Professional Engineers. The award recognizes Professor Hang’s commitment to and legacy in NPRE, particularly for undergraduate student professional development.