Converting Nuclear Liabilities to Assets. Turning Waste into Medicine

Abstract

Canada has been at the forefront of the applications of radioisotopes for medical purposes in treatment and diagnostic fields. In the 1930s, the Eldorado Gold and Mining Company (AECL’s Chemical Products Division predecessor) started supplying the world with Radium-226 (Ra-226) for brachytherapy. Common use of Radium-226 was discontinued in the 1970s, after which it was determined to be waste. Since then hospitals and national nuclear facilities have been attempting to manage this waste material.

For decades, other industries have looked to recycle waste products as inputs into new production. Nuclear has always had this potential. Two recent examples will be presented where Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) is leveraging legacy waste to make a rare isotope with great potential to treat and cure late stage diseases. Thorium-229 (Th-229) was purified from Uranium-233 (U-233) remaining from nuclear fuel research in the 1980s to build Actinium-225 (Ac-225) generators. For over 5 years CNL has been one of only 4 places globally providing this critical isotope to collaborators, customers and supporting Canada’s S&T Program.

More recently, Ra-226 has been broadly recognized as an efficient target material for producing Ac-225, though production of Ra-226 sources that ceased in the late 1960s. CNL now seeks Ra-226, the very product it once produced and was deemed as waste over 4 decades ago, as the key starting material for the next generation of medical isotopes to come from Chalk River Laboratories (CRL). What is considered today’s “waste” is fast promising to be tomorrow’s “gold”.