Recent activities of R&D on effects of tritium water on confinement materials and tritiated water processing

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

It is quite significant subject how to confine the tritium in a fusion reactor. Especially, it is strongly desired to get the data for tritiated water. This is because tritiated water is much hazardous than the hydrogen form of tritium. As for the behavior of high concentration tritium water, we could get a series of valuable data for the corrosion of the tritiated water against metal materials. In the case where a metal material is in water, an oxidized layer is formed at the surface of the metal. The oxidized layer functions as a passive layer for the corrosion. However, it has been observed that the formation of the oxidized layer was prevented by the presence of tritium in water (0.23 GBq/cc). The chemical exchange column has been applied in ITER as the tritium recovery system from tritiated water. A set of data for an advanced chemical exchange column has been obtained.