CNEA and INVAP finalized the start-up of a radioisotope production plant in India

Specialists from the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) and the company INVAP SE, together with personnel from the Board of Radiation & Isotope Technology (BRIT), Department of Atomic Energy, India, successfully completed on August 23 the commissioning of the facility that the Argentine company was building in the city of Mumbai.

In an international tender carried out in 2014, the company INVAP was the winner for the execution of this project called “LEU based Mo-99 Production Facility” (FMP), which included -under the turnkey modality- the design and engineering, manufacturing , supply, installation and commissioning of the plant, as well as the training of operating personnel both in Argentina and India.

The purpose of the plant is the generation of Molybdenum-99, an essential input used for diagnostic purposes in nuclear medicine. The success of the process transfer carried out by CNEA references the technological capacity of our country, which has been a world pioneer in developing a production process for Mo-99 by fission using low-enriched uranium irradiation targets (Low Enriched Uranium -LEU).

Activities of the Indian Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, during his visit to Buenos Aires

We celebrate the successful participation of our CNEA team made up of Radioisotope Production Manager Natalia Stankevicius; the head of the Production Plant Débora Botazzini; the head of the Fission Plant Process Leticia Santaren; the head of Radioprotection Hernán Spinelli; cell operators Ricardo Bavaro, Miguel López, Sergio Fazio, Gisele Lencina and Alejo Orsi; Quality Control Ivana Pumar and Eliana Furlani; Radioprotection officers Cestau Julián and Javier Monserrat; and the technical representative of the Pablo Cristini Project.

The purpose of the plant is the generation of Molybdenum-99, an essential input used for diagnostic purposes in nuclear medicine

This new international milestone, achieved as a result of the cooperation between INVAP and the CNEA, is one more example of our country’s commitment as a world leader in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and consolidates Argentina’s profile as an exporter of cutting-edge technology with high value. aggregate.