Tritium science and technology for fusion reactor, 6; Studies on chemical phenomena of high concentration tritium water and organic compounds of tritium from viewpoint of the tritium confinement

Yamanishi, Toshihiko; Hayashi, Takumi; Iwai, Yasunori; Isobe, Kanetsugu; Hara, Masanori*; Sugiyama, Takahiko*; Okuno, Kenji*

In a fusion reactor, tritium must be handled in a vacuum vessel, a fuel cycle, and other systems. It is quite significant subject how to confine the tritium in these systems. ITER is the first machine in the world where the tritium confinement would be demonstrated. It is essential to establish a series of database for tritium handling technology to analyze the data obtained at ITER. Especially, it is strongly desired to get the data for tritium water. This is because tritium water is much hazardous than the hydrogen form of tritium. For these reasons, our attention is focused on the study on the behavior of tritium water in the fuel cycle system and structural materials of the system. As for the behavior of high concentration tritium water, we could get the first series of valuable data for the corrosion of the tritium water against metal materials in the world. The behavior of tritium in a surface area of metal and organic compounds was also discussed. As for tritium recovery from tritium water, we could get the data on an advanced chemical exchange column. The chemical exchange column has been applied in ITER as the tritium recovery system from tritium water. Our data showed that the column performance could be remarkably improved. Tritium durability and catalyst tests have also been carried out for the chemical exchange column. Some other possible method for the tritium recovery has also been studied such as an advance adsorption method.