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Canadian researchers are racing to perfect a safe, clean, inexpensive and reliable method for making isotopes used in medical imaging and diagnostic procedures. The new method does not require a nuclear reactor and could therefore eliminate future shortages of technetium-99m — the most widely used medical isotope today.
Learn more about linear accelerator.
Video length: 01:33 min
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Video description
To make the medical isotope, technetium-99m, NRC uses a high-power electron accelerator. This accelerator generates an intense beam of x-rays that irradiates coin-sized metal pellets, which contain the molybdenum-100 isotope. When x-rays strike the nucleus of a molybdenum-100 atom, they knock out a neutron, “transmuting” it into a radioactive molybdenum-99 atom.
Irradiated metal containing molybendum-99 is then dissolved using a simple chemical procedure. This solution is left for several hours, allowing some of the molybdenum-99 atoms to “decay” into technetium-99m atoms.
An automated radionuclide separator then extracts technetium-99m in a form that can be used by hospitals for medical imaging.
