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Unicamp joins the national effort to train researchers in nuclear energy

Dean creates GT to enable participation in the Navy project that includes the construction of the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor (RMB)

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Luiz Carlos Kretly, professor at FEEC and coordinator of the working group created by the Rectory | Professor Celso Darío Ramos, responsible for the Nuclear Medicine Service at Unicamp
Professor Celso Darío Ramos, responsible for the Nuclear Medicine Service at Unicamp | Luiz Carlos Kretly, professor at FEEC and coordinator of the working group created by the Rectory

Responding to the invitation of the Brazilian Nuclear Program Development Committee (CDPNB) to participate in a technical group (GT-9) aimed at boosting the training of human resources for the Brazilian nuclear sector, Unicamp decided to create its internal multidisciplinary GT, through an ordinance from the Dean Marcelo Knobel, to join this national effort in the area of ​​nuclear sciences. Around 20 institutions participate in the CDPNB technical group, the majority from the state of São Paulo, such as USP, Unesp, UFABC, UFScar, in addition to UFRJ, CNEN (National Nuclear Energy Commission), IPEN (Institute for Energy and Nuclear Research ), Amazul (Amazônica Azul Tecnologias de Defesa SA) and Eletronuclear (responsible for the nuclear generation units in Angra).

The predominance of partners from São Paulo is due to the physical proximity to the Aramar Nuclear Industrial Center (CINA), of the Brazilian Navy, the same place where the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor (RMB) will be built, in the city of Iperó, region of Sorocaba (SP) . This reactor will be essential to ensure that the demand for radiopharmaceuticals from the Unified Health System (SUS) is met, for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, such as cancer. “It is essential that Unicamp joins this effort to develop national technology for the countless beneficial uses of radiation, which will boost its most diverse research in the areas of exact sciences and health. And this is already being done through the group recently created by the Rectory”, says Luiz Carlos Kretly, professor at the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FEEC) and coordinator of the GT.

Dean Marcelo Knobel visited CINA in 2017, together with Unicamp's senior management, while members of the internal GT were there last August. “We are interested in collaborating with the country on major projects”, highlighted Knobel. “We follow the initiatives of the Brazilian Nuclear Program Committee, the construction of the MB Multipurpose Reactor and the possibility of collaborating in the training of human resources. We are dedicated to finding researchers interested in the topic so that they can contribute to the project and also benefit from it, as the Navy has advanced laboratories at its center in Iperó.”

Luiz Carlos Kretly explains that the CDPNB is coordinated by General Augusto Heleno, chief minister of the Institutional Security Office (GSI) of the Presidency of the Republic. “Rector Marcelo Knobel appointed me and Professor Celso Darío Ramos, who has a long history in nuclear medicine and has participated in previous meetings about the project in Brasília, as Unicamp representatives.”

The FEEC professor, in turn, was appointed to represent the exact and technological areas due to his involvement in a project with the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) on small nuclear reactors applied to electrical energy. “It is an innovative technology – called Small Modular Reactors (SMR) – applied in countries such as Canada, Russia, China and the United States, and which allows the implementation of small nuclear plants to serve microregions or microgrids (microgrids) in electrical energy. I would say that a small plant fits on a ship, as Russia showed, which took a floating plant to the Arctic.”

By way of comparison, Kretly reports that the Chinese Three Gorges plant, the largest in the world, has a capacity of 22.500 MW (megawatts), Itaipu of 14.000 MW and Angra 3 of 1.350 MW, while an SMR generates 135 to 300 MW electricity, enough to serve thousands of inhabitants in more remote regions such as Roraima or Amapá. “It is true that there is, worldwide, a great prejudice against nuclear energy, which is associated with nuclear weapons and accidents. But this is ending. So much so that Bill Gates created a company to build small nuclear plants in which the fuel used is recycled from large plants. He is setting up TerraPower in China, which is more liberal in its regulations, but has temporarily suspended the project due to the trade dispute with the Trump administration.”

Self-sufficiency in radiopharmaceuticals

The Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor, under construction in Iperó, should make Brazil self-sufficient in the production of radioisotopes, which are the active elements of radiopharmaceuticals used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases. Despite the initial emphasis on this area of ​​nuclear medicine, the RMB will also expand national capacity in research into nuclear techniques, with applications extended to agriculture, industry and the environment, in addition to serving to test and qualify materials and fuels.

Celso Darío Ramos, professor at the Department of Radiology at the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM) and responsible for the Nuclear Medicine Service at the Hospital de Clínicas (HC) at Unicamp, sees nuclear medicine as one of the main examples of the beneficial use of radiation. “And it cannot be replaced by any other method. The technique consists of administering very small amounts of radioactive substances to the patient, radiation slightly greater than what we normally receive in the environment, but sufficient to produce images of organs and various tissues. And, in larger quantities, these radioactive substances are used to treat diseases, especially some types of cancer.”

Present at the last meeting of the CDPNB technical group on September 24, Celso Darío considers that nuclear medicine is well advanced in Brazil, with most of the procedures carried out in developed countries taking place here. “The methodology can be used in heart, neurological, orthopedic, kidney and endocrine system diseases, that is, practically in all organs. A recent technique, for example, makes it possible to detect the recurrence of prostate cancer very early and also treat it at an advanced stage. A substance very similar to PSA – which every man must receive an annual dosage from the age of 50 – is made radioactive and, with less intense radiation, used to produce images and locate where the cancer recurs; with more intense radiation, it serves to treat in a targeted manner the places where the cancer has spread.”

According to the FCM professor, nuclear medicine is available throughout the country – although less so in the North and Northeast – and is covered by the SUS for most procedures. “Even so, the offer for the poorest population is much smaller than for those who have medical insurance. This is partly due to the lack of radioactive materials, which is why Unicamp's agreement with the network proposed by the CDPNB technical group, centered on the future Nuclear Technological Center in Aramar (CTNA), is important, contributing to the training of human resources to work in the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor. Various radioisotopes will be produced there, including molybdenum-99, the main input for technetium-99, the material most used for diagnosis. Currently, Brazil imports all the molybdenum-99 it uses – from South Africa, Argentina, part of Belgium and recently from Russia.”

Members of the Unicamp and Brazilian Nuclear Program working groups met in Iperó
Members of the Unicamp and Brazilian Nuclear Program working groups met in Iperó

Nuclear submarine and Angra 3

The Brazilian Nuclear Program has been developing, in addition to the nuclear power plants in Angra, the Brazilian nuclear-powered submarine, whose prototype under construction in Iperó SP is already in an advanced testing phase – only six countries in the world have nuclear submarine programs. Unicamp researchers had the opportunity to visit the Nucleoelectric Generation Laboratory (Lagnege), which is the full-size prototype of the national submarine.

Luiz Carlos Kretly points out that nuclear energy is seen by many as the only solution for supplying carbon-free electrical energy in the world, as solar energy fluctuates greatly from day to night and wind energy fluctuates even more, dependent on winds. “Nuclear energy is continuous, we say it is dispatchable (dispatchable), and can be sent on demand. It is no coincidence that China builds one Angra 3 per year, and also has a project for small nuclear power plants, and our work at FEEC, together with the Chinese and Russians, is to evaluate their impacts both from a security point of view and on the sector. electricity, whose current distribution and transmission system is very expensive, while modular nuclear plants are regionalized systems.”

Kretly points out other advantages of small reactors, which in addition to being widely used in seawater desalination due to their intense energy, also store surplus steam and can drive the turbines again to generate electrical energy. “A proposal that is on the radar of the research community is to develop thorium reactors, which have a radioactive isotope and are very safe, as they alone do not sustain the chain reaction like uranium and plutonium, for example. One ton of thorium generates the same amount of energy as 200 tons of uranium or 3,5 million tons of coal, with Brazil holding 11% of the reserves. It turns out that it is not yet a consolidated technology, we know from research in the United States, Finland and Russia.”

Paradigm change

In the last six months, according to the coordinator, the GT listed dozens of disciplines that Unicamp can offer for the training of human resources (the institution's greatest merit), possible research to be carried out with the Brazilian Multipurpose Reactor and in nuclear energy for the area of electrical energy, as well as the lines of research of interest to our researchers that would be made possible in the laboratories in Iperó. “A final document, at the request of the Rectory, was the formatting of these aspects in an umbrella agreement between Unicamp and CTNA – the memorandum of understanding is already under analysis by the Brazilian Navy.”

Luiz Carlos Kretly even sees a paradigm shift for Unicamp itself when it enters the area of ​​nuclear research. “We have skills in the use of nuclear energy, work has already been produced and, for new master's and doctorate students, it is a new attraction that we were not very aware of. The Navy, on the other hand, concentrates a large part of the knowledge in the nuclear area in the country and wants to share it with several universities – a common saying is that it will open its laboratories in the hope of oxygenating the academic system.”

The Unicamp units that will participate in the CDPNB project and the network centered on CTNA are the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FCM), Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences (FCF), Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering (FEEC), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering ( FEM), Institute of Biology (IB), Faculty of Chemical Engineering (FEQ), Institute of Physics Gleb Wataghin (IFGW), Institute of Chemistry (IQ), Institute of Geosciences (IG) and Center for Biomedical Engineering (CEB).

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Audio description: simplified illustration that simulates an aerial image of a nuclear industrial center, with several buildings distributed among green spaces, forming blocks. In the center of the image is the main building, with a few floors and a tower with an antenna. Just ahead, another building, larger, rectangular and with only a ground floor. There are paved streets around the block and in the center. On the right in the image, there is the entrance that gives access to the place. Image 1 of 1.

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