Water extraction of technetium-99m from neutron irradiated porous molybdenum dioxide pellet

We have been developing a novel ⁹⁹Mo/^99mTc generator production method using a water-insoluble porous MoO₂ target. In this method, the extraction of ^99mTc from MoO₂ is achieved by leveraging the difference in their water solubilities. The fabrication of a porous MoO₂ pellet, and the water extraction of ^99mTc from neutron irradiated porous MoO₂ were conducted. The results confirmed ^99mTc extraction with a low Mo/Tc ratio. Additionally, the dissolution rate of radioactive ⁹⁹Mo was found to be higher than stable isotopes of molybdenum, i.e., confirming the hot atom effect on the dissolution of molybdenum in (n, \(\upgamma \) $\mathrm{\gamma }$ ) reaction.