Monitoring of tritium in diluted gases by detecting bremsstrahlung X-rays

Shu, Wataru; Matsuyama, Masao*; Suzuki, Takumi; Nishi, Masataka

In this work, the counting rate of bremsstrahlung X-rays was measured against the tritium partial pressure in two mixed gases diluted with helium or hydrogen. Subsequently, the counting rate was also measured against total pressure for T-He mixture at a constant tritium partial pressure of 93 Pa or 1.3 kPa. For both mixtures, the counting rate of bremsstrahlung X-rays decreased linearly with the decreasing tritium partial pressure when the total pressure is smaller than about 10 kPa. At higher pressures, the deviation from the linear relationship appeared due to absorption of beta-particles in the gas phase, and this can be decreased by some commercially available arrangements. On the other hand, the counting rate of bremsstrahlung X-rays depended only upon the tritium partial pressure when absorption of beta-particles in the gas phase is negligibly small. The results obtained show that this method of tritium monitoring is very promising for the fuel processing system of fusion reactors, especially for tritium recovery system of breeding blankets.