Issues in Tritiated Waste Management for Fusion Power Reactors

Treatment of tritiated waste from fusion power reactors has received little attention. Wastes will need detritiation involving isotope swamping before disposal, recycling or exemption. Work on detritiation techniques should consider the isotopic dilution involved as well as decontamination factor, volume reduction and product homogeneity; for the cost of tritium recovery from the contaminated water (or hydrogen) produced is highest for tritium levels just above the release limits. Most important to the overall costs of tritiated waste disposal are release and declassification limits.