Feasibility study for the production of trans-uranium radionuclides in a typical research reactor

The production of trans-uranium isotopes such as Am-241 and Cf-252 is done using irradiated reactor fuels or by irradiating targets in the core of research reactors. The main production of these two radionuclides is done in America and Russia. In this study, at first, the feasibility study of producing these nuclides using the irradiated fuels of a typical research reactor for two powers of 5 and 10 megawatts has been done using the ORIGEN code. In another part, calculations for the target of uranium with 99.7% by weight of uranium-238, which exists at the end of the enrichment cycle, has also been done. The results of the calculations show that the production efficiency of trans-uranium radionuclides in 10 MW power is many times higher than 5 MW. Also, the efficiency of trans-uranium radionuclides production using the target irradiation of depleted uranium is about 2 times higher than the radionuclides produced form the irradiated fuel of the typical 5 MWe research reactor.