The announcement of the winners of the Investment Leaders award and a forum that brought together more than 100 speakers took place recently in Moscow. More than 50 companies became laureates, including such major ones as Alfa-Capital, Sberbank Asset Management, Rostelecom, Segezha Group, VTB, Norilsk Nickel, etc.

Rosenergoatom (part of the Electric Power Division of Rosatom State Corporation) was recognized as one of the winners in the Investment in Innovation category in the Project of the Year nomination for a project to produce cobalt-60 at RBMK-type reactors.

Rosenergoatom has over 20 years of experience in the industrial production of cobalt-60 in irradiation devices of RBMK-1000 thermal neutron channel reactors at the Leningrad NPP. And since 2017, the project has been scaled up to the Kursk and Smolensk nuclear power plants.

The process of irradiating cobalt-59 to obtain the necessary cobalt-60 takes about 5 years. Obtained in a nuclear reactor, Co-60 is used in the production of gamma radiation sources, which are used in various sectors of the economy: in the food industry for sterilizing food and water, in the agricultural sector to stimulate the growth and productivity of grain and vegetable crops, sterilization and disinfection of agricultural products. Cobalt isotope is used for disinfection of solid and biologically hazardous waste, gamma-ray flaw detection of various products.

The growth in global demand for sterilization services for medical devices, including those caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to an increase in demand for sterilization Co-60. Today, up to 40% of disposable medical instruments and materials are sterilized with the help of Co-60 gamma radiation sources.

According to the head of the project office on the development of the isotope business, Artur Miskov, from 2022 the annual production of Co-60 at Russian nuclear power plants is projected at 30% of the world market. “This will strengthen the position of Rosatom in the long term, as a global leader in the world market for sterilization Co-60,” he said.

Today investing is an important component of the activities of not only large companies, but also individual people. The demand for corporate, social and environmental responsibility of enterprises is growing every year, which increases the number of responsible investors and companies engaged in ESG investments.

“We are convinced that investments in the creation and development of innovative industries in the nuclear power industry will give an additional impetus to the development of nuclear medicine and industry in the Russian Federation, as well as to increase the duration and