Removal of Tritium from TFTR

Operation of the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) with a mixture of deuterium and tritium fueling has permitted the opportunity to measure the retention of tritium in the graphite limiter and other internal hardware. The use of discharge cleaning techniques and venting to remove the tritium was investigated. The tritium was introduced into TFTR by neutral beam injection and by gas puffing. The graphite limiter is subject to erosion and codeposition. While short term retention was high, the retention averaged over the 1993-1995 D-T campaign was 52 % +/- 15 %. The tritium removal techniques resulted in lowering the in-vessel inventory from 16.4 kCi at the end of 1995 operation to 7.2 kCi at the start of the 1996 experimental program.