トリチウムを安全に扱うための触媒開発; 核融合の実用化に近づく大きな一歩

Successful development of a new catalyst for efficiently collecting tritium; A Breakthrough toward realization of fusion reactors

岩井 保則; 久保 仁志*; 大嶋 優輔*

Iwai, Yasunori; Kubo, Hitoshi*; Oshima, Yusuke*

核融合の実現に向けた研究開発として、トリチウム水と軽水素ガスを接触させ、水蒸気-水素間の水素同位体の交換を可能にする疎水性触媒作成技術の開発に成功した。本触媒は、核融合炉で発生しうるトリチウム水の減容・濃縮に適用できる。一般の触媒は水蒸気雰囲気では触媒性能を失うため、本触媒は高濃度の水蒸気雰囲気でも触媒の活性を維持するために本触媒は特殊な疎水性処理を施している。水素の同位体であり放射性のトリチウムを燃料として大量に使用する核融合プラントでは、環境中へのトリチウム放出を抑制するために、トリチウムを酸化処理し、水形にしたのちに吸着剤等で除去を行う。貴重な資源であるトリチウムを燃料として再循環させるために、核融合プラントではトリチウム水を濃縮し、ガス形に変換するトリチウム水処理システムを設ける。トリチウム水処理システムはその技術的難易度ゆえに核融合トリチウム関連技術で唯一国内にてシステム実証されておらず、本触媒の開発によりその大きな技術的ハードルを越える見通しを得た。本成果の研究過程と期待される波及効果を含め解説する。

We have successfully developed a new hydrophobic platinum catalyst for collecting tritium at nuclear fusion reactors. Catalysts used to collect tritium are called hydrophobic precious metal catalysts. In Japan, hydrophobic precious metal catalysts manufactured from polymers have been used for heavy water refinement. However, this catalyst has issues related to embrittlement to radiation and thermal stability. These technological issues needed to be solved to allow for its application to nuclear fusion reactors requiring further enrichment from highly-concentrated tritiated water. We developed a new method of manufacturing catalysts involving hydrophobic processing with an inorganic substance base. As a result, previous technological issues were able to be solved with the development of a catalyst that exhibited no performance degradation in response to radiation application of 530 kGy, a standard for radiation resistance, and maintenance of thermal stability at over 600C, which is much higher than the 70C temperature that is normally used. The catalyst created with this method was also confirmed to have achieved the world's highest exchange efficiency, equivalent to 1.3 times the previously most powerful efficiency. The application of this catalyst to the liquid phase catalytic exchange process is expected to overcome significant technological hurdles with regards to improving the reliability and efficiency of systems for collecting tritium from tritiated water.