Developments on the tritium extraction and recovery system for HCPB

摘要

The tritium release from the ceramic materials of the DEMO Breading Blanket (BB) is a complex mechanism due mainly to the chemistry of the interface between the breeder material and the purge gas. The tritium atomic form produced inside the ceramics structure is converted into tritiated water at the surface of the breeder material due to interaction with residual moisture / water layer on the ceramics and free oxygen atoms after Li burn-up. Therefore, in contrast to the liquid BB where tritium is produced as Q2 solely, the Tritium Extraction and Recovery (TER) from any solid BB must handle both the molecular tritium and the tritiated water. Most of the processes considered for T extraction from the purge gas foresee to handle Q2O and Q2 separately and consecutively, making necessary a two-stage process for full tritium removal.