Application of Pt-Loaded Honeycomb Catalysts in Air Detritiation

In nuclear fusion reactor facilities, the multi-confinement system and the air detritiation system (ADS) are very important to prevent tritium leaking to the environment. A high-performance tritium oxidation catalyst is strongly required in the ADS. In this study, the air resistance and catalytic performance of honeycomb detritiation catalysts are investigated. Then, the honeycomb catalysts are applied in a glove-box detritiation system as well as in an ADS, and the detritiation performance is tested with tritium. Honeycomb catalysts have a much lower air resistance and an excellent scale-up effect due to the behavior of laminar flow. Thus, the honeycomb catalyst increases the reaction space velocity by nearly 100 times without decreasing the conversion rate of H₂. Even at an extremely low tritium concentration, the honeycomb catalyst transforms tritium over 95% into tritiated water. In short, Pt-loaded honeycomb catalysts have a huge advantage in and broad potential for air detritiation.