TRENTA Facility for Trade-Off Studies Between Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange and Cryogenic Distillation Processes

One of the most used methods for tritium recovery from different sources of tritiated water is based on the combination between Combined Electrolysis Catalytic Exchange (CECE) and Cryogenic Distillation (CD) processes. The development, i.e. configuration, design and performance testing of critical components, of a tritium recovery system based on the combination CECE-CD is essential for both JET and ITER. For JET, a Water Detritiation System (WDS) is not only needed to process tritiated water which has already been accumulated from operation, but also for the tritiated water which will be generated during decommissioning. For ITER, the WDS is one of the key systems to control the tritium content in the effluents streams, to recover as much tritium as possible and consequently to minimize the impact on the environment. A cryogenic distillation facility with the aim to investigate the trade-off between CECE-CD, to validate different components and mathematical modelling software is current under development at Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) as an extension of the existing CECE facility.