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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.
R. C. Lloyd, E. D. Clayton
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 52 | Number 1 | September 1973 | Pages 73-75
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE73-A23289
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of criticality experiments have been completed with plutonium nitrate solutions made up from extremely high burnup fuel (239Pu isotopic concentration <½ total Pu). The measurements were performed on a large, 61-cm-diam, water-reflected, cylindrical vessel. The critical experiment data were analyzed by means of the KENO Monte Carlo code utilizing both ENDF/B-H and -III cross sections; the computed criticality factors were in the range of 1.6 to 1.9% above unity. The effects of the various heavy element isotopes on criticality were analyzed. The results show the importance of properly accounting for, and treating, the effects of each of the various isotopes in computing criticality. Even the presence of as little as 1% of 241 Am can cause a change in the reactivity of the solutions used in these experiments by ∼1%.