Compact Neutron Source for Medical Isotope Production

如果你心脏病发作，医生很有可能会给你注射一种~(99)Tcr示踪剂。当示踪剂在你的血液中循环时，Technedium会像X光机一样发射X射线。然而，与X光机不同的是，示踪器只显示有血流的区域，因此可以清楚地看到阻塞。氚还被用于许多其他医疗程序，以区分软组织中的其他差异：例如，癌症肿瘤比正常组织更多地吸收某些放射性示踪剂，因此与周围组织相比，它们会发光。通过将钼-99包装到一个发电机中，将氚提供给医院：在大约一周的时间里，钼-99在发电机中衰变成氚，然后提取出来用于诊断程序。但有一个问题。目前，大量的钼-99只能在少数几个专业核反应堆中生产，所有这些反应堆都变得太旧，无法安全运行，最近两个主要反应堆的故障造成了供应危机，而此时需求不断增长。作为背景，去年进行了3600万例核医学手术，其中大部分需要Technedium。来自曼彻斯特大学和兰开斯特大学的研究人员正在寻找一种使用粒子加速器生产氚的新方法。使用与大型强子对撞机等粒子对撞机类似的技术，他们提议使用高功率射频四极杆(RFQ)将离子加速进入目标以产生中子。就像他们打算更换的反应堆一样，这些中子然后可以用来制造钼-99。尽管RFQ不能产生像反应堆那样多的中子，但它的建造和运营成本要低得多，而且可以在全国各地建造这么多中子来提供国内供应的钼-99，尽管英国每年使用100多万剂氚，但目前英国没有钼-99。一旦RFQ和TARGET被优化，研究人员计划建造一个加速器原型，以证明这项技术的商业可行性，并正在与已有的公司就如何做到这一点进行谈判。

If you have a heart attack, it's fairly likely that the doctor will inject you with a Technetium-99 tracer. As the tracer circulates through your bloodstream, the Technetium emits X-rays just like an X-ray machine. However, unlike an X-ray machine, the tracer shows up just those regions where there is blood flow, so that blockages can be seen clearly. Technetium is also used in a host of other medical procedures to distinguish other differences in soft tissues: for example, cancer tumours take up certain radiotracers more than normal tissue, so that they 'light up' compared to their surroundings. Technetium is supplied to hospitals by packaging Molybdenum-99 into a generator: Molybdenum-99 decays into Technetium in the generator over about a week, and the Technetium extracted and used for diagnostic procedures. But there's a problem. Right now, large quantities of Molybdenum-99 can only be made in a few specialised nuclear reactors, all of which are becoming too old to be run safely, and recent failures in the two principal reactors have created a crisis in supply, at a time when there is an ever-growing demand. To put it into context, 36 million nuclear medicine procedures were carried out last year, most of which need Technetium. Researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Lancaster are looking at a new method to produce Technetium using a particle accelerator. Using similar technology to that used in particle colliders like the LHC, they propose using a high-power radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) to accelerate ions into a target to generate neutrons. Like in the reactors they intend to replace, these neutrons can then be used to make Molybdenum-99. Although an RFQ cannot make as many neutrons as a reactor, it is much cheaper to build and operate, and so many could be built around the country to provide a domestic supply of Molybdenum-99, which the UK doesn't have at the moment despite using over a million doses of Technetium a year. Once the RFQ and target are optimised, researchers plan to build a prototype accelerator to demonstrate the commercial viability of the technique, and are talking to companies already about how to do this.