Catalyst technology of Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo

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

Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo provides a broad range of precious metals products and technologies. Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo and Japan Atomic Energy Agency have jointly 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 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. It is also anticipated that the hydrophobic platinum catalyst manufacturing technology used for this catalyst could be applied to a wide range of fields other than nuclear fusion research. It was verified that if applied to a hydro oxidation catalyst, hydrogen could be efficiently oxidized, even at room temperature. This catalyst can also contribute to improving safety at non-nuclear plants that use hydrogen in general by solving the aforementioned vulnerability issue.