Production of 177Lu with deuterons at IFMIF-DONES facility

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential of the IFMIF-DONES facility for producing the radioisotope 177Lu using deuterons, including design simulations and viability assessment for future nuclear applications.

Contribution

It presents the first study on 177Lu production with deuterons at IFMIF-DONES, including device design and simulation results demonstrating feasibility.

Findings

Production of 177Lu with deuterons is viable at DONES.

A cooling system device for isotope production was designed and simulated.

New nuclear data above 20 MeV for deuterons is needed for accurate modeling.

Abstract

The International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility - Demo Oriented NEutron Source (IFMIF-DONES) is a single-sited novel Research Infrastructure for testing, validation and qualification of the materials to be used in a fusion reactor. The main purpose of IFMIF-DONES is related to fusion technology and neutron irradiation of the materials to be used in the future fusion power plants. However, there is an important effort to take advantage of the outstanding characteristics of the facility in terms of neutrons and deuterons. One of the applications could be radioisotopes production with deuterons and neutrons. We discuss here the possible production of radioisotopes with deuterons at DONES. In this work, we have focused on the production of 177Lu with deuterons. The study has been carried out through the design and simulation of a device as cooling system for the sample producing the radioisotope. The results show the viability of using DONES for such production. In addition, the study suggests that new nuclear energy data above 20 MeV for deuterons is mandatory for an accurate study in this field.