Mark-18A Target Materials Recovery Study?

The Department of Energy (DOE) manages an inventory of materials that contains a range of long-lived radioactive isotopes that were produced from the 1960s through the 1980s by irradiating targets in production reactors at the Savannah River Site (SRS) to produce special heavy isotopes for DOE programmatic use, scientific research, and industrial and medical applications. During the late 1960s, one of the production reactors was configured to operate in a very high flux mode, and >8 kg of 242Pu contained in Mark-18A targets were irradiated to produce 252Cf for use in neutron source applications. Several targets were processed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to recover the 252Cf, heavy curium, and 244Pu. Sixty-five of the Mark 18A targets were not processed and are currently in wet storage at SRS. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Materials Integration has tasked ORNL and Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to develop plans to recover the 244Pu and heavy curium for future use. Plans for recovery of the stored Mark-18A materials will be presented.