Titanium tritide radioisotope heat source development: palladium-coated titanium hydriding kinetics and tritium loading tests
- Sandia National Lab. (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Aiken, SC (United States)
We have found that a 180 nm palladium coating enables titanium to be loaded with hydrogen isotopes without the typical 400-500 °C vacuum activation step. The hydriding kinetics of Pd coated Ti can be described by the Mintz-Bloch adherent film model, where the rate of hydrogen absorption is controlled by diffusion through an adherent metal-hydride layer. Hydriding rate constants of Pd coated and vacuum activated Ti were found to be very similar. In addition, deuterium/tritium loading experiments were done on stacks of Pd coated Ti foil in a representative-size radioisotope heat source vessel. The experiments demonstrated that such a vessel could be loaded completely, at temperatures below 300 °C, in less than 10 hours, using existing department-of-energy tritium handling infrastructure.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-CA), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 1035341
- Report Number(s):
- SAND--2012-0232
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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