Abstract
Emissions from medical isotope production are the most important source of background for atmospheric radioxenon measurements, which are an essential part of nuclear explosion monitoring. This article presents a new approach for estimating the global annual radioxenon emission inventory caused by medical isotope production using the amount of Tc-99m applications in hospitals as the basis. Tc-99m is the most commonly used isotope in radiology and dominates the medical isotope production. This paper presents the first estimate of the global production of Tc-99m. Depending on the production and transport scenario, global xenon emissions of 11–45 PBq/year can be derived from the global isotope demand. The lower end of this estimate is in good agreement with other estimations which are making use of reported releases and realistic process simulations. This proves the validity of the complementary assessment method proposed in this paper. It may be of relevance for future emission scenarios and for estimating the contribution to the global source term from countries and operators that do not make sufficient radioxenon release information available. It depends on sound data on medical treatments with radio-pharmaceuticals and on technical information on the production process of the supplier. This might help in understanding the apparent underestimation of the global emission inventory that has been found by atmospheric transport modelling.
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Acknowledgments
This work was carried out at the Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Center for Science and Peace Research, University of Hamburg, and revised after M.K. became staff member with the Provisional Technical Secretariat of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Bean Treaty Organisation (CTBTO). This work was sponsored by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF).
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The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission nor those of the University of Hamburg.
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Kalinowski, M.B., Grosch, M. & Hebel, S. Global Xenon-133 Emission Inventory Caused by Medical Isotope Production and Derived from the Worldwide Technetium-99m Demand. Pure Appl. Geophys. 171, 707–716 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-013-0687-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-013-0687-5