TBM Tritium Processing
And Control
Dai-Kai Sze
UCSD
Presented at the
US ITER-TBM Meeting
Idaho Falls, Idaho
Aug. 10-12, 2005
Goal of Tritium Recovery System
 The TBM tritium recovery system is
to demonstrate the tritium recovery
system for a DEMO reactor.
 The tritium recovery system for a
DEMO reactor needs to limit the
tritium inventory in the blanket
system to be lower than 100 g.
 The tritium recovery system also
needs to limit the tritium loss rate to
be below 10 Ci/FPD.
 The cost and the power requirement
of the system needs to be below 10
MW, and 10 M$, respectively.
Concerns for LiPb blanket
 The tritium solubility in LiPb is very
low.
 The characteristics of the tritium
system are high tritium partial
pressure and low tritium inventory.
 Tritium recovery to a low tritium
inventory is not an issue.
 Tritium recovery to a low tritium
partial pressure to satisfy tritium
control concern is always the key
issue.
Literature Review
Many tritium recovery processes
have been proposed:
S. Tanaka “Hydrogen transport through gas/Li17Pb83
interface and effect of isotope swamping” Fusion
Technology (1992) 1513T. Terai “Tritium release behavior
from molten lithium-lead alloy by permeation through
stainless steel type 304, J. Nucl. Mater. 191-194(1992)209
T. Terai “Surface oxide layer as a barrier to tritium
permeation through structural material facing 17Li-83Pb
molten alloy” Fusion Technol (1992) 1518
A. Viola ”Recent experimental results of the rates of
hydrogen permeation through metallic materials in
the presence of liquid Pb17Li alloy: influence of the
performance and design of tritium recovery
equipment” Fusion Eng. Des. 8 (1989)
R. Conrad “In-pile release from liquid breeder material
Pb-17Li in LIBRETTO 1 experiment” Fusion Technol.
(1988) 1046
R. Conrad “Irradiation of liquid breeder material Pb-17Li
with in-situ tritium release measurements in the
LIBRETTO 2 experiment” J. Nucl. Mater. 179-181 (1991)
875
G. Thevenot “LIPSIE device: Pb-17Li irradiation in water
loop with on-line tritium measurement” J. Nucl. Mater.
191-194 (1992) 226
J. Reimann “Tritium separation from fusion LiPb
blankets by permeation into a gas stream or into NaK”
Fusion Technol. (1986) 1579
G. Pierini “Mass transfer operational units applied to the
liquid breeding material of fusion reactors for tritium
recovery” Fusion Techoll. 8(1985) 2121
G. Pierini “Tritium recovery from liquid Li17Pb83 alloy
blanket materials” Nucl. Eng. Des/Fusion 1 (1984) 159
D. Sze “Counter current exchange extraction system for
tritium recovery from 17Li-83Pb” Fusion Technol 8
(1985) 887
G. Pierini “ Feasibility study of tritium recovery systems
from 83Pb17Li breeding material of a D-T fusion reactor”
(1984) 1429
B. Malara “The feasibility of tritium extraction from
blankets of fusion reactors in light of recent
experimental data” Fusion Technol., (1992/ 1429
G. Pierini “ The statues of the art of tritium recovery from
liquid Pb-17Li blanket materials” Proc. Int. Symp. On
fusion reactor blanket and fuel cycle technology, Tokai,
Japan, 1986 140-144
F. Feurestein “ Transport of deuterium and rare gases by
flowing molten Pb-17Li, J. Nucl. Mater 179-181 (1991)
882
T. Terai “Mass transfer coefficient of tritium from molten
lithium-lead alloy (Li17Pb83) to environmental gas under
neutron irradiation” Fusion Eng. Design 17 (1991) 272
A Viola “Experimental results on the hydrogen mass
transfer rate in molten Pb17Li alloy” Fusion Technol.
(1988) 1265
A. M. Polcaro “The kinetics of hydrogen adsorption in
molten Pb/Li alloy” J. Nucl. Mater. 119 (1983) 291
J. Riemann “Tritium separation from Pb-17Li by
permeation into Na or NaK and cold trapping: First
experiments on recovery from cold traps” Fusion
Technol. 14 (1988) 804
J. Riemann “ Tritium removal technique for a self-cooled
Pb-17Li blanket” 18th SOFT
J. Riemann “ Tritium removal from NaK-cold traps: first
results on hydride precipitation kinetics” Fusion
Technol. 21 (1992) 872
J. Riemann “ Tritium removal from naK-cold traps:
investigation of hydrogen release kinetics” Fusion Eng.
Des. 18 (1991) 67
H. Feuerstein “Extraction of tritium from Pb-17Li by use
of solid getters” Fusion Technol. (1990) 646
M. carolin :The impact of tritium solubility and diffusivity
on inventory and permeation in liquid breeder blankets”
Fusion Technol 14 (1988) 663
 Many works on tritium recovery
from LiPb have been published.
 Most of this proposals can recovery
tritium to the inventory limit
(<100g).
 The concern is if any one of those
methods can reduce the tritium
partial pressure to be below the
control limit.
 Critical assessment of the proposed
tritium recovery processes is
necessary to decide any of the
process can meet the desgin goal.
What US should do
 ITER TBM will not need a tritium
recovery process at least until the
starting of the D-T phase, or about
17 years from now.
 We need to concentrate our R/D
efforts to the task which is critical
to the DCLL concept, such as the
SiC or other forms of insert.
 The US effort will do a through
review of the existing tritium
recovery literature.
 We will work with other ITER parties
through international collaboration,
such as IEA collaboration.
 We will start tritium R/D, if
necessary, maybe 10 years from
now.