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The Ways to Increase Light Water Detritiation Efficiency by Chemical Isotope Exchange Between Hydrogen and Water in Membrane Contact Devices

M. B. Rozenkevich, I. L. Rastunova

Fusion Science and Technology / Volume 60 / Number 4 / November 2011 / Pages 1407-1410

Detritiation and Isotope Separation / Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology (Part 2) / dx.doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12694

The results of studying efficiency of water detritiation by “hydrogen - water” chemical isotope exchange in laboratory-scale facility with membrane contact devices including perfluorosulfonic cationite Nafion-type membranes and platinum hydrophobic catalyst RCTU-3SM are presented. It has been shown that a decrease of detritiation efficiency caused by poisoning membranes with metal ions coming from equipment materials due to their corrosion after long-time operating the facility can be observed. It has been shown as well that modification of a membrane by metal ions followed by its regeneration allows not only to restore but also to increase significantly the efficiency of mass-transfer in membrane contact devices. For example, replacing membranes in contact devices of the laboratory-scale facility resulted in increasing the column separation degree by a factor of more than 7 in comparison to initial value obtained at similar conditions.