Development Status and Prospect for the Medical Isotope Molybdenum-99 Produced by Electron Accelerator

As the decay daughter of 99Mo, 99mTc is the most widely used radioisotope in the field of nuclear medicine. Recently, the major 99Mo production reactors in the world are facing problems such as unplanned maintenance, shutdown and decommission, resulting in the unstable supply of 99Mo. Therefore, many developed countries have been actively exploiting alternative technologies for 99Mo production. In this paper, various 99Mo-production technologies by particle accelerator instead of reactor were introduced, and the research progress of producing 99Mo based on electron accelerator was summarized at home and abroad. The accelerator performance index and the key technologies in the production process were discussed in detail, such as the design of irradiation device and target, separation of 99mTc, recovery of 100Mo and waste management. In addition, some suggestions were put forward for the basic and applied research of relevant technologies in China and the commercialization of 99Mo production by electron accelerator.