Methods of tritium recovery from molten lithium

Technical Report · Wed Dec 18 00:00:00 EST 1968

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6301133· OSTI ID:6301133

Farookhi, R.; Rogers, J. E.

It is important to keep the tritium inventory in a blanket of a thermonuclear reactor at a low level both to eliminate possible hydriding of structural components and to reduce inventory cost. Removing the tritium from a lithium blanket by fractional distillation, flash vaporization, and fractional crystallization was investigated. No definitive data are available either on the vapor-liquid equilibrium between lithium and tritium at low T/sub 2/ concentrations, or on the rate of formation and decomposition of lithium tritide. The final distinction between the recovery systems discussed in this report will depend on such data, but presently distillation appears to be the best alternate to the diffusion scheme proposed by A.P. Fraas. The capital cost of equipment necessary to remove tritium by distillation appears to be greater than 10 million dollars for a 5000 MW system, whereas the capital cost associated with the diffusion process has been estimated to be 4 million dollars.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Oak Ridge, TN (USA). School of Chemical Engineering Practice
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400
• OSTI ID: 6301133
• Report Number(s): ORNL-MIT-66; ON: DE85002584
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Portions are illegible in microfiche products
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
LITHIUM
TRITIUM RECOVERY
SEPARATION PROCESSES
BREEDING BLANKETS
INVENTORIES
LITHIUM TRITIDES
TRITIUM
ALKALI METAL COMPOUNDS
ALKALI METALS
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
ELEMENTS
HYDRIDES
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
HYDROGEN ISOTOPES
ISOTOPES
LABELLED COMPOUNDS
LIGHT NUCLEI
LITHIUM COMPOUNDS
LITHIUM HYDRIDES
METALS
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
RADIOISOTOPES
REACTOR COMPONENTS
RECOVERY
TRITIUM COMPOUNDS
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
700206* - Fusion Power Plant Technology- Environmental Aspects