A Feasibility Study of the Catalytic Reduction Method For Tritium Recovery from Tritiated Water Tritium Systems

Experimental and theoretical feasibility studies of a catalytic reduction method were carried out for application to the tritium recovery processes in fusion reactor systems. Experiments on the decomposition of water vapor were performed under the following conditions: temperatures of 350 to 650 K; an H₂O vapor concentration of 10³ to 10⁴ ppm; a mole ratio of CO to H₂O of 1 to 10; and a space velocity of 2 × 10² to 2 × 10⁴ h⁻¹. The catalyst used was a mixture of CuO, ZnO, and Cr₂O₃. It has been demonstrated that this method using the zinc-stabilized catalyst can be adapted to recover tritium from tritiated water with a high conversion ratio (>0.999 per one path) at comparatively low temperature (450 K). The catalytic rate equation and the rate constants determined by this work can be used for designing a practical catalytic reduction bed for the decomposition process of the tritiated water.