FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR PRODUCTION OF IODINE-131 USING DIOXIDE OF TELLURIUM-130

Objective: Currently, nuclear medicine is becoming increasingly important, through the discovery of several medical radioisotopes, which are used in diagnosis, treatment, and medical imaging. Among the most important radionuclide which is commonly used is iodine-131, with a half-life of 8.02 d. Iodine-131 is one of the mainly essential elements in nuclear medicine. Since their first use, several studies have been conducted to meet the world need of hospital specialists in nuclear medicine. The purpose of this study was to participate in a lawsuit about the feasibility of producing 131I.Methods: using neutron activation of the dioxide of tellurium (TeO2) under a neutron flux which varies between 5 1011 and 1013 n/cm²s for 4, 6 and 8 hours** per irradiation cycle during 5 d, and used the Fortron90 Code to calculate the activity of iodine-131.Results: The result of the activity of iodine-131 found about 4,634 Curie with an irradiation of 4 hours** per day and 9.381 Curie with an activation of 8 hours** per day.Conclusion: Production of iodine-131 can be very effective if an acceptable capsule is used for different masses of tellurium and a neutron flux in a nuclear reactor.