Feasibility study of large-scale production of iodine-125 at the high temperature engineering test reactor

The feasibility of a large-scale iodine-125 production from natural xenon gas at high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) was investigated. A high-temperature engineering test reactor (HTTR), which is located in Japan at Oarai-machi Research and Development Center, was used as a reference HTGR reactor in this study. First, a computer code based on a Runge-Kutta method was developed to calculate the quantities of isotopes arising from the neutron irradiation of natural xenon gas target. This code was verified with a good agreement with a reference result. Next, optimization of irradiation planning was carried out. As results, with 4 days of irradiation and 8 days of decay, the ¹²⁵I production could be maximized and the ¹²⁶I contamination was within an acceptable level. The preliminary design of irradiation channels at the HTTR was also optimized. The case with 3 irradiation channels and 20-cm diameter was determined as the optimal design, which could produce approximately 1.8 × 10⁵GBq/y of ¹²⁵I production.