Fluor Daniel to process radioisotopes
The Canadian subsidiary of engineering and construction firm Fluor Daniel of Irvine, CA, has won a contract to process medical radioisotopes produced by the Maple reactor complex being built by Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL). Fluor Daniel Canada will
The Canadian subsidiary of engineering and construction firm Fluor Daniel of Irvine, CA, has won a contract to process medical radioisotopes produced by the Maple reactor complex being built by Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL). Fluor Daniel Canada will construct a processing facility near the Maple complex to house hot cells, which are used for the separation of isotopes.
AECL is building the Maple reactors to provide a stable supply of radioisotopes such as molybdenum, the raw material for technetium-99m, a commonly used radioisotope in nuclear medicine studies. The age of the existing AECL reactor that is being used to produce molybdenum has concerned nuclear medicine physicians, and a labor dispute at AECL caused a brief shutdown of molybdenum shipments last summer (SCAN 7/9/97). The Maple reactors are scheduled to be completed by 1999, with medical isotope production beginning some time after that.