Prediction of production of 22Na in a gas-cell target irradiated by protons using Monte Carlo tracking

•Angular distribution of the proton beam in a gaseous environment.•Particle energy distribution profile and proton flux within gas-cell target with MCNPX.•Detection of the residual nuclei during the nuclear reactions.•Estimation of production yield for 22,natNe(p,x)22Na reactions. The 22Ne(p,n)22Na is an optimal reaction for the cyclotron production of 22Na. This work tends to monitor the proton induced production of 22Na in a gas-cell target, containing natural and enriched neon gas, using Monte Carlo method. The excitation functions of reactions are calculated by both TALYS-1.6 and ALICE/ASH codes and then the optimum energy range of projectile for the high yield production is selected. A free gaseous environment of neon at a particular pressure and temperature is prearranged and the proton beam is transported within it using Monte Carlo codes MCNPX and SRIM. The beam monitoring performed by each of these codes indicates that the gas-cell has to be designed as conical frustum to reach desired interactions. The MCNPX is also employed to calculate the energy distribution of proton in the designed target and estimation of the residual nuclei during irradiation. The production yield of 22Na in 22Ne(p,n)22Na and natNe(p,x)22Na reactions are estimated and it shows a good agreement with the experimental results. The results demonstrate that Monte Carlo makes available a beneficial manner to design and optimize the gas targets as well as calibration of detectors, which can be used for the radionuclide production purposes.