A study on separation of 99Mo from neutron-irradiated UO2 by precipitation as ammonium molybdophosphate.

pharmaceuticals has increased so rapidly in the past few yearsl) that the production and the supply of 99Mo are one of the most important missions of an organization for radioisotope production. Molybdenum-99 having enough high specific activity for the medical application can be produced by nuclear fission of 235U. For the separation of 99Mo from fission products have been reported various methods such as adsorption on alumina column2), solvent extraction with di (2-ethylhexyl) phosphoric acid31 or the precipitation by a-benzoinoxime4). Those methods, however, include timeconsuming and complicated procedures or have an danger of radiation decomposition of organic materials. In this work, a new, simple and practical separation method was developed, which based on the selective precipitation of fission-produced 99Mo. Uranium dioxide having a high melting point