Adsorption capacity of hydrogen isotopes on mordenite

Kawamura, Yoshinori; Onishi, Yoshihiro*; Okuno, Kenji*; Yamanishi, Toshihiko

In a fusion reactor system, a monitoring of hydrogen isotopes including tritium is necessary from the viewpoint of safety control. A gas chromatography using a cryogenic separation column is one of the methods for hydrogen isotope analysis. However, use of a refrigerant such as liquid nitrogen is a cause of long analysis time and is not suitable for easy installation. The development of the column material having separation capability at fairly high temperature is one of the solutions for these weak points. Synthesis zeolite such as molecular sieve 5A is a probable candidate. If the factor effected to the hydrogen adsorption property of the synthesis zeolite is clarified, it may lead to the development of the new zeolite optimized to the separation column. So, in this work, adsorption isotherms of hydrogen and deuterium for mordenite were investigated. The amount of adsorption per unit weight was larger than that of molecular sieve 5A.