Technical Meeting on Commercial Products and Services of
Research Reactors

28 June–2 July, 2010, IAEA, Vienna

The Forschungsneutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz is Germany’s youngest and by its 20 MW most powerful research reactor. It is operated by the Technische Universität München (TUM) on its campus in Garching. The design of FRM II is characterized by a single compact fuel element being embedded in a large heavy water filled moderator tank. In this geometry the peak value of the thermal neutron flux density is located outside the fuel element in an area which is accessible for major experimental installations like the Cold Neutron Source. A further advantage of the use of heavy water is that it results in a very high ratio of thermal/fast neutron flux density offering ideal conditions for most irradiation experiments. In order to attract not only scientists but also commercial customers FRM II operates various irradiation facilities covering a large variety of applications. The commercially most important activity is the doping of Si by neutron transmutation; about 15 t of Si are processed per year. Growing interested is also attributed to the production of isotopes for industrial and radiopharmaceutical purposes using FRM II’s high flux irradiation channels. Of course also standard irradiation applications like the exposure of samples for neutron activation analysis or the irradiation of geological samples for fission track analysis are provided by FRM II. Another application which merits special attention is the therapy of mainly skin and throat cancer by means of fast neutron irradiation. Starting from 2007 human patients are treated in FRM II on a regular basis in cooperation with TUM’s faculty for medicine. Finally also neutron scattering techniques like for example neutron tomography, non destructive stress measurements or small angle scattering are offered on a commercial basis by FRM II to interested parties from the industry.

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