On the 20th of February 2018 Director General of ROSATOM Alexei Likhachev made a working visit to Electrochemical Plant (PA ECP, part of Fuel Company of ROSATOM TVEL in the ‘closed city’ of Zelenogorsk of Krasnoyarsk Territory).
Likhachev emphasized that the company was a global leader in stable isotope production; a share of ECP’s production in the world market is more than 40%. As part of export contracts, the official supplier of isotopes – JSC V/O Isotope – supplies a broad range of stable isotopes produced by Electrochemical Plant, including for the largest international scientific collaborations that carry out fundamental research in nuclear physics.
As it was noted, in 2018 ROSATOM’s companies will continue the cooperation in supplying the isotope germanium-76 (76Ge) for the GERDA experiment (GERmanium Detector Array, Germany) as well as the isotope molybdenum-100 (100Мо) for the collaboration AMoRE (South Korea). Both research projects are aimed at neutrino properties studies. In particular, in March the first batch of 76Ge is expected for the Technical University of Munich. This isotope made at ECP is used for making germanium semiconductor detectors for the second stage of the GERDA experiment which is carried out in the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy.
Besides, as part of the contract between V/O Isotope and Research Institute IBS (South Korea), in 2018 supplies of 100Мо continue to be used by the AMoRE collaboration in experiments to study neutrino properties. Highly enriched isotopes of high chemical purity are used for growing scintillation crystals required for research with high precision detectors.
“Over the years of participation in large international projects, ROSATOM’s production and exporting companies have strictly fulfilled all severe requirements of foreign isotope customers set forth for both the product quality and delivery arrangements level. For many times ECP has confirmed it high technical level during international audits and we are sure that this year the company will show the decent results again,” Alexei Likhachev noted.
JSC PA ECP produces 106 isotopes of 20 chemical elements. Annual production reaches hundreds of kilograms. Besides Russia, Electrochemical Plant products is in demand in 26 countries (stable isotopes are widely used in electronics, material diagnostics, space research, medicine and other industries). With that, an active work is carried out to broaden the list of products, including building up the equipment and technologies for separation of isotopes of rear-earth metals. In particular, one of the most promising areas is production of neodymium isotopes. Besides, it is planned to master production of the isotope chromium-50 (50Cr) for research in neutrino physics.
JSC PA ECP fulfills any demands of customers in production, storage and transportation of products, including storage of the materials in the special underground storage, carrying out additional measurements in independent laboratories, making special shielded transportation containers etc.