Micro-Channel Catalytic Reactor Integration in Caper and R&D on Highly Tritiated Water Handling and Processing

The CAPER facility of the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe has demonstrated the technology for the tokamak exhaust processing. CAPER has been significantly upgraded to pursue R&D towards highly tritiated water (HTW) handling and processing. The preliminary tests using a metal oxide reactor producing HTW afterward detritiated with PERMCAT were successful. In a later stage, a micro-channel catalytic reactor was installed in view of long term R&D program on HTW. The integration of this new system in CAPER was carried out along with a careful safety analysis due to high risk associated with such experiments. First experiments using the μ-CCR were performed trouble free, and HTW up to 360 kCi/kg was produced at a rate of 0.5 g/h. Such HTW was collected into a platinized zeolite bed (2 g of HTW for 20 g of Pt-zeolite), and in-situ detritiation was performed via isotopic exchange with deuterium. These first experimental results with tritium confirmed the potential for the capture and exchange method to be used for HTW in ITER.