Application of pressure swing adsorption to water detritiation process

Iwai, Yasunori; Yamanishi, Toshihiko; Nishi, Masataka; Suzuki, Yutaka*; Kurita, Koichi*; Shimazaki, Masanori*

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 42(6), p.566 - 572, 2005/06

https://doi.org/10.3327/jnst.42.566

Pressure swing adsorption has been studied as a new water processing method for a future fusion power plant which will have a large amount of tritiated water to be processed. A series of adsorption and dehydration experiments was carried out for a typical adsorbent of NaX zeolite and it was clearly observed that break through time differs in HO and HTO, that is, it is certain that NaX zeolite can separate into the tritium concentrated water and the tritium reduced water. The quick dehydration is attained by decompression and purge gas flowing. It was observed that a part of the water released by decompression was transferred by the purge gas, and the rest water was adsorbed on the adsorbent again and was gradually released by the diffusion. It is demonstrated that enlargement of pressure difference between adsorption and dehydration is effective to obtain high dehydration ratio. Furthermore, it was also verified that enough vapor removal capacity of purge gas is quite necessary to obtain high dehydration ratio.