Medical isotope firm Shine Medical Technologies and nuclear technology company Phoenix are laying claim to a new world record for a nuclear fusion reaction.
The companies said that their steady-state system produced a reaction that yielded 46 trillion (4.6 x 1013) neutrons per second, beating the previous record held by the Rotating Target Neutron Source II facility in Livermore, CA, by approximately 25%. The new record was achieved in late July during a demonstration of Phoenix's third-generation gas-target neutron generator. Shine and Phoenix are currently preparing for full-scale production of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) at Shine's production facility in Janesville, WI.
Phoenix (formerly known as Phoenix Nuclear Labs) will supply eight high-flux neutron generators to produce Mo-99 using low-enriched uranium. In June, Shine and Phoenix tested the first production-ready particle accelerator system with more than 132 consecutive hours of operation to determine the percentage of uptime and total neutron output.
