Sintered Nickel Casing for Irradiation Targets

The aim of this work was to develop an alternative way to obtain casings used with irradiation targets containing uranium, for the production of the radionuclide Mo-99-Tc99m. The targets used for the production of Mo-99 are materials containing U-235 designed to be irradiated in a nuclear reactor. Usually these targets are encapsulated in aluminum or stainless steel. The idea here is to obtain casings by encapsulating a uranium button or a metallic cylinder with compacted and sintered nickel powder, this serving as a sealing for the fissile products occurring during U-235 irradiation. The sintered high purity nickel powder samples were compacted in uniaxial hydraulic press at 195 MPa. The sintering of the samples was carried out in an open-air furnace in an atmosphere with a certain control using titanium-machining chips at 600 °C. The samples bulk density was evaluated by the Archimedes' principle. The porosity of 20.08% was measured by mercury porosimetry. The microstructure was investigated by scanning microscopy revealing interconnected porosity and nickel oxide at the particles boundary surface. The results obtained by sintering of nickel powder according to the experimental undertaken, indicate the feasibility of achieving a casing for uranium targets.