Last year, the companies State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) \u2014one of the largest Chinese electric infrastructure companies and operator of China\u2019s nuclear power plants\u2014 and Shangai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute (SNERDI) \u2014a renowned reactor design center\u2014 contacted INVAP with the interest in collaborating on issues related to experimental nuclear reactors and radioisotope production plants for medical uses.<\/p>\n
The process is in the early defining stages. As usual in these cases, the technical and commercial aspects of international scope entail several stages and cycles of participation of the protagonists involved.<\/p>\n
The recent presidential visit to Beijing, accompanied by the Governor of the Province of R\u00edo Negro, ratified the path initiated. It is expected that the remission of the pandemic will permit professionals and technicians to travel between China and Argentina so as to speed up the process by taking the next steps.<\/p>\n
China has recently formulated a national plan to produce Molybdenum-99 and other radioisotopes for medical use, most of which are currently imported. Thus, China\u2019s government intends to build in the country a major research and radioisotope production center for nuclear medicine. This plan has awakened the interest from several industrial groups of the Asian country to work on the subject.<\/p>\n
It is worth mentioning that Argentina, through the National Commission of Atomic Energy (CNEA, in Spanish), developed during the 1990s a new technology for producing Molybdenum-99 \u2014the radioisotope most used in nuclear medicine, based on low-enriched uranium (LEU)\u2014, aimed at reducing the risk of proliferation and awarded by the international community. Since then, equipment and plants based on this technology have been exported, complementing the value chain of reactors exported by INVAP, as in the cases of Egypt, Australia, Algeria, India and the Netherlands.<\/p>\n