Abstract
Detritiation of contaminated metals may be done by the isotopic exchange of tritium with water, steam or hydrogen.
A detritiation installation is used in the tritium laboratories at SCK ● CEN. The installation comprises a furnace in which the tritiated metals are placed. The furnace is fed through a evaporation mixer that mixes water and a carrier gas in suitable proportions. The released tritium (HT and HTO) passes through a catalytic recombiner, and is quantitatively converted to HTO. When the gas passes through a series of high efficiency coolers, it condenses and can be collected as water. A tritium monitor records the activity remaining in the outgoing gas flow. Besides the construction and startup of the detritiation installation this thesis discusses the experiments carried out for the inactive validation: Leak testing, optimization of the gasflow and different steady-state conditions.
The active validation has started as well: The tritium monitor was validated and a simulation test with injection of a tritiated gas has been performed.
As conclusion can be said that the installation complies with the established leading requirements. There is sufficient flexibility towards sample size and degree of contamination of the supplied non plasma-facing metals.
| Original language | English |
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| Place of Publication | Geel, Belgium |
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| State | Published - 1 Jun 2009 |