Fuel Clean-Up: Poisoning of Palladium-Silver Membranes by Gaseous Impurities

摘要

The feasibility of a permeation process using a palladium-silver alloy membrane, to separate deuterium and tritium from fusion reactor gaseous wastes needs demonstration owing to poisoning effects of impurities. A parametric investigation of the poisoning by the most important expected gaseous impurities (C0, C0/sub 2/ and CH/sub 4/) is carried out with the loop PALLAS, in function of membrane temperature (100 to 450 deg C), H/sub 2/ pressure (0.3 to 14 kPa) and impurity concentration (0.2 to 9.5 vol. %). The poisoning effect of C0 is a concern for the process while C0/sub 2/ and CH/sub 4/ appear to have no practical effect on the permeation rate. Depending on C0 concentration optimal operating temperatures of the membrane should lie between 250 and 375 deg C limits. (ERA citation 14:012442)