The Savannah River Site (SRS) tritium facilities have used 1st generation (Gen1) metal hydride storage bed assemblies with process vessels (PVs) fabricated from 3 inch nominal pipe size (NPS) pipe to hold up to 12.6 kg of LaNi4.25Al0.75 metal hydride for tritium gas absorption, storage, and desorption for over 15 years. The 2nd generation (Gen2) of the bed design used the same NPS for the PV, but the added internal components produced a bed nominally 1.2 m long, and presented a significant challenge for heater cartridge replacement in a footprint limited glove-box.

A prototype 3rd generation (Gen3) metal hydride storage bed has been designed and fabricated as a replacement candidate for the Gen2 storage bed. The prototype Gen3 bed uses a PV pipe diameter of 4 inch NPS so the bed length can be reduced below 0.7 m to facilitate heater cartridge replacement. For the Gen3 prototype bed, modeling results show increased absorption rates when using hydrides with lower absorption pressures. To improve absorption performance compared to the Gen2 beds, a LaNi4.15Al0.85 material was procured and processed to obtain the desired pressure-composition-temperature (PCT) properties. Other bed design improvements are also presented.