Tritium Processing Tests for the Validation of Upgraded PERMCAT Mechanical Design

The PERMCAT process, chosen for the final clean-up stage of the Tritium Exhaust Processing system in ITER, directly combines a Pd/Ag membrane and a catalyst bed for the detritiation of gaseous mixtures containing molecular and chemically bound tritium. Upgraded PERMCAT mechanical designs have been proposed to both increase the robustness and simplify the design of the reactor. One uses a special corrugated Pd/Ag membrane able to withstand change in length of the membrane during both normal operation and in the case of off-normal events. Based on this design, an upgraded PERMCAT reactor has been produced at FZK and successfully tested at TLK with ITER relevant tritiated gaseous mixtures using the CAPER facility.