The Workshop on Signatures of Medical and Industrial Isotope Production - WOSMIP; Strassoldo, Italy, 1-3 July 2009

详细信息	查看全文 | 推荐本文 |

• 作者：K.M. Matthews^a ; ^{murray.matthews@xtra.co.nz} ; T.W. Bowyer^b ; P.R.J. Saey^c ; R.F. Payne^b
• 关键词：Medical isotope production facilities ; CTBT ; IAEA ; Xenon isotope signatures ; Noble gas monitoring ; Environmental radioxenon
• 刊名：Journal of Environmental Radioactivity
• 出版年：2012
• 期刊代码：45_0265931x
• 类别：env
• 出版时间：August, 2012
• 卷：110
• 期：Complete
• 页码：1-6
• 文件大小：208 K

摘要

Radiopharmaceuticals make contributions of inestimable value to medical practice. With growing demand new technologies are being developed and applied worldwide. Most diagnostic procedures rely on ^99mTc and the use of uranium targets in reactors is currently the favored method of production, with 95%of the necessary ⁹⁹Mo parent currently being produced by four major global suppliers. Coincidentally there are growing concerns for nuclear security and proliferation. New disarmament treaties such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) are coming into effect and treaty compliance-verification monitoring is gaining momentum. Radioxenon emissions (isotopes Xe-131, 133, 133m and 135) from radiopharmaceutical production facilities are of concern in this context because radioxenon is a highly sensitive tracer for detecting nuclear explosions. There exists, therefore, a potential for confusing source attribution, with emissions from radiopharmaceutical-production facilities regularly being detected in treaty compliance-verification networks. The CTBT radioxenon network currently under installation is highly sensitive with detection limits approaching 0.1聽mBq/m鲁 and, depending on transport conditions and background, able to detect industrial release signatures from sites thousands of kilometers away. The method currently employed to distinguish between industrial and military radioxenon sources involves plots of isotope ratios ^133mXe/^131mXe versus ¹³⁵Xe/¹³³Xe, but source attribution can be ambiguous. Through the WOSMIP Workshop the environmental monitoring community is gaining a better understanding of the complexities of the processes at production facilities, and the production community is recognizing the impact their operations have on monitoring systems and their goal of nuclear non-proliferation. Further collaboration and discussion are needed, together with advances in Xe trapping technology and monitoring systems. Such initiatives will help in addressing the dichotomy which exists between expanding production and improving monitoring sensitivity, with the ultimate aim of enabling unambiguous distinction between different nuclide signatures.