The detritiation of highly tritiated water by liquid phase catalytic exchange needs dilution of the feed with water to tritium concentrations suitable for catalyst and safety rules and to assure flow rates large enough for wetting the catalyst. Dilution by recycling detritiated water from within the exchange process has three advantages: (1) the amount and concentration of the water for dilution is controlled within the exchange process, (2) there is no additional water load to processes located downstream RACE, and (3) the ratio of gas to liquid flow rates in the exchange column can be adjusted by using several recycles differing in amount and concentration to avoid an excessively large number of theoretical separation stages. The flexibility of the recycle attuned catalytic exchange (RACE) and its effect on the cryogenic distillation are demonstrated for the detritiation of the highly tritiated water from a tritium breeding blanket.