Control of Chemical Forms of Tritium in FLiNaK under Low Flux Neutron Irradiation

Abstract

The use of the isotopic exchange between tritium produced in molten salts and hydrogen molecules in a sweep gas has been proposed as a way of recovering tritium in a self-cooled molten salt liquid blanket system [1-3]. In the present study, rate coefficients of the isotopic exchange for molten FLiNaK (LiF-NaF-KF) have been evaluated in a series of low flux neutron irradiation experiments with an AmBe neutron source at the OKTAVIAN facility of Osaka University in Japan. Approximately 300 cm³ of FLiNaK were irradiated at 773 K in an Inconel 600 crucible, and tritium released from the free surface of FLiNaK has been swept by a pure He gas or He+H₂ (0.1%) gas. The change in the amounts of soluble tritium (TF, HTO) and insoluble tritium (HT) recovered by water bubblers has been evaluated in each sweep gas to evaluate the effectiveness of the tritium recovery with the isotopic exchange.