Study of the behavior of tritiated water vapor in concrete materials

• Published in: Journal of nuclear materials Vol. 417; no. 1-3; pp. 1183 - 1186
• Main Authors: Kobayashi, Kazuhiro, Iwai, Yasunori, Hayashi, Takumi, Yamanishi, Toshihiko
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.10.2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Controled nuclear fusion plants; Energy; Energy. Thermal use of fuels; Exact sciences and technology; Fission nuclear power plants; Fuels; Installations for energy generation and conversion: thermal and electrical energy; Nuclear fuels; Sorption; Nuclear fusion reactor; Cement; Tritium; Concrete; Desorption; Safety; Water vapor; Nuclear reactor
• ISSN: 0022-3115; 1873-4820
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2010.12.297

A fusion reactor requires high levels of safety and public acceptability, so safe confinement of tritium is a key issues. In order to understand tritium behavior in the concrete reactor components, sorption and desorption experiments were carried out as a function of the exposure time for sorption and the kind of purge gas for desorption. The samples used were cement paste, mortar and concrete. These samples were exposed to 740–1110Bq/cm3 of HTO vapor in 1kPa of H2O vapor at room temperature. Desorption experiments were carried out using N2 purging gas with water vapor by the thermal desorption method. The concrete materials became almost saturated with HTO within about 1–6months. Though the chemical form of tritium desorbed from the sample was mostly HTO, HT and other compounds were also detected above 673K.