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Westinghouse, Nordion, and PSEG team up to produce Co‑60 in the United States
This past January, Westinghouse Electric Company, Nordion, and PSEG Nuclear formalized agreements to implement newly developed cobalt-60 production technology at Units 1 and 2 of PSEG’s Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey, with the Co-60 to be supplied to Nordion. Through an ongoing joint initiative, the companies aim to harness U.S. pressurized water reactors to produce a key medical isotope and build the first commercial-scale Co-60 production platform in the United States.
P. R. Fields, G. L. Pyle, M. G. Inghram, H. Diamond, M. H. Studier, W. M. Manning
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 1 | Number 1 | March 1956 | Pages 62-67
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE56-A17658
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effective pile neutron capture cross sections of the heavier Pu isotopes have been measured by irradiations, in the Chalk River Reactor (NRX) and in the Materials Testing Reactor. The values in barns for Pu240, Pu241, Pu242, Pu243, Pu244, and Pu245 were found to be: 530 ± 50, 390 ± 80, 30 ± 10, 170 ± 90, 1.5 ± 0.3, and 260 ± 145, respectively. In addition, a thermal neutron absorption cross section of 1450 ± 250 barns was found for Pu241 and a thermal neutron fission cross section of 1060 ± 210 barns for Pu241. Using these cross sections and an assumed flux of 3 × 1014 cm-2 sec-1, curves were calculated and plotted showing the variation in composition of plutonium as a function of integrated flux.