Recent activities of R&D on effects of tritium water on confinement materials and tritiated water processing

The permeation behavior of tritium through pure iron into the gas containing water vapor has been studied. It was found that the permeation rate of tritium was almost the same as that with no water vapor, and the major chemical form of tritium was HTO. It was also found that the permeation rate was decreased to similar to 1/10 of the above value by plated with gold, and the major chemical form was HT. As for the behavior of high concentration tritium water, it was observed that the formation of the oxidized layer was prevented by the presence of tritium in water (0.23 GBq/cc). A set of data for an advanced chemical exchange column has been obtained as R&D on the tritiated water processing. The packing and catalyst were uniformly mixed into the advanced column. It has been proved that there was possibility that the advanced column has a large separation factor in comparison with the ordinary columns, where the packing and catalyst were alternately packed. Tritium durability tests were also carried out for the electrolysis cell of the chemical exchange column. The ion conductivity of the main material of the cell (Nafion) was hardly decreased even in the case of 1600 kGy irradiation by gamma ray. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.