Mechanical Stability Study

Abstract

Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne), in collaboration with the BioSeparations Laboratory at Purdue University, is helping Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services Group develop the Medical Isotope Production System (MIPS), which will use an aqueous homogenous reactor (AHR) for the domestic production of 99 Mo. Roughly 200 L of low enriched uranium (LEU, 19.75% U-235) as a uranyl nitrate solution will be irradiated and passed through a column, which has been pre-equilibrated with nitric acid, for 2 hours. Column sizes have been predicted for the plant-scale production of 99 Mo by using Purdue University’s Versatile Reaction Separation (VERSE) simulator and experimental data provided by Argonne. In the plant, these columns will undergo multiple loading/washing/stripping cycles to purify 99 Mo from batches of irradiated LEU solutions. Since the previous report was distributed, the selection of sorbents to be used in the columns has been reduced to three titania-based sorbents. This report describes the results from mechanical stability studies that were performed to test the pressure drop and sorbent resistance to stress under relevant process conditions.