METHOD TO TEST ISOTOPIC SEPARATION EFFICIENCY OF PALLADIUM PACKED COLUMNS

Conference · Wed Jun 27 00:00:00 EDT 2007

OSTI ID:909609

Heung, L; Gregory Staack, G; James Klein, J; William Jacobs, W

The isotopic effect of palladium has been applied in different ways to separate hydrogen isotopes for many years. At Savannah River Site palladium deposited on kieselguhr (Pd/k) is used in a thermal cycling absorption process (TCAP) to purify tritium for over ten years. The need to design columns for different throughputs and the desire to advance the performance of TCAP created the need to evaluate different column designs and packing materials for their separation efficiency. In this work, columns with variations in length, diameter and metal foam use, were tested using an isotope displacement method. A simple computer model was also developed to calculate the number of theoretical separation stages using the test results. The effects of column diameter, metal foam and gas flow rate were identified.

• Research Organization: SRS
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC09-96SR18500
• OSTI ID: 909609
• Report Number(s): WSRC-STI-2007-00119
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

38 RADIATION CHEMISTRY, RADIOCHEMISTRY, AND NUCLEAR CHEMISTRY
ABSORPTION
COMPUTERS
DESIGN
DIATOMACEOUS EARTH
EFFICIENCY
GAS FLOW
HYDROGEN ISOTOPES
ISOTOPE EFFECTS
ISOTOPE SEPARATION
PALLADIUM
PERFORMANCE
THERMAL CYCLING
TRITIUM