Tritium Experiments on Components for Fusion Fuel Processing at the Tritium Systems Test Assembly

Under a collaborative agreement between the US and Japan, two tritium processing components, a palladium diffuser and a ceramic electrolysis cell, have been tested with tritium for application to a Fuel Cleanup System(FCU) for plasma exhaust processing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The fundamental characteristics, compatibility with tritium, impurities effects with tritium, and long-term behavior of the components, were studied over a three year period. Based on these studies, an integrated process loop, “JAERI Fuel Cleanup System” equipped with the above components was installed at the TSTA for full scale demonstration of the plasma exhaust reprocessing.