Assessment of Tritium Inventory in Waste by Outgassing Measurements

The production of large volumes of low specific activity waste is a byproduct of working with tritium. Reliable, labour minimized techniques for assessing the tritium bound in the waste is essential for an effective waste management program. This work examines the use of tritium outgassing rates from waste as a means of determining the bound inventory. A simple and inexpensive technique has been developed which, when combined with a sampling methodology, leads to accurate measurements of tritium outgassing rates. These outgassing rates when used in conjuction with the appropriate database will yield the inventory bound in the waste. The results of this study support the viability of the proposed approach.