The Radioisotope Production Facility was initially highlighted during the 2004/2005 investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency, as Egypt declared the new facility which was under construction to the agency. Egypt should have reported the decision to construct the new facility no later than 1997 and it was considered failure to report. Egypt took a corrective actions and provided a modified design information for the RPF. RPF was officially inaugurated by the former Prime Minister, Ibrahim Mahlab on 15 August 2015 and the ceremony was attended by Conrado Assenza, the Associate Ambassador of Argentina in Egypt; Mohamed Shaker, the Minister of Electricity and Energy of Egypt; Sherif Hamad, the Minister of Scientific Research of Egypt; Atef Abdel Fattah, the President of the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority and Yasser Tawfik, the project director.
Overview
The Radioisotope Production Facility is located at the Nuclear Research Center in Inshas, near ETRR-2 research reactor and Fuel Manufacturing Pilot Plant as the three facilities share the same auxiliary services with high degree of integration between ETRR-2 and RPF to ensure safe transfer of the irradiated targets for radioisotope production. RPF is a Low enriched uranium based facility using 19.75% enriched uranium, as the targets prepared at RPF laboratory then manually transferred to the ETRR2 reactor, where the targets are loaded into the irradiation device. The device is installed in the irradiation position in grid or core from the pool head. The molybdenum targets are irradiated in the core position while non-molybdenum targets, placed in aluminium cans to be irradiated in the grid around the core. The produced high-level waste from the RPF, stored near the ETRR-2 reactor waiting for final disposal in deep geological formations.
Layout
RPF divided into free, supervised and controlled area. The free area with no radioactive material is handled, contain offices, dressing rooms and common services. The supervised area with minimum radioactivity level, contain quality control laboratories and cell-front operation areas. The controlled area with highest radioactivity, consist of hot cells, cell ventilation filters and management areas of gas, liquid, and solid. RPF provided with 12 hot cells as the following:
Molybdenum-99 Production Hot Cells - four hot cells.
Molybdenum-99, through the fission of LEU plate targets, which used for medical diagnosis.
The obtained Molybdenum-99, Iodine 125, Iridium 192 and Iodine 131 batches have outperformed the contracted values with molybdenum batches exceeded contractual values by 5 to 10% and the quality of the product has been higher than the technical requirements and at least equal to the product obtained by CNEA in Argentina.
