Hydrogen-tritium

It IS often stated that unclear fusion tvill produce no radioactive hazard, but this is not correct. The most likely fuels for a fusion reactor would be deuterium and radioactive tritium, which arc isotopes of hydrogen. Tritium is a gas, and in the event of a leak it could easily be released into the surrounding environment. The fusion of deuterium and tritium produces neutrons, which would also make the reactor building itself somewhat radioactive. However, the radioactivity produced in a fusion reactor would be much shorter-lived than that from a fission reactor. Although the thermonuclear weapons (that use nuclear fusion), first developed in the 1950s provided the impetus for tremendous worldwide research into nuclear fusion, the science and technology required to control a fusion reaction and develop a commercial fusion reactor are probably still decades away. 

The tritiated version could be prepared from tritiated formic acid which we had prepared at high specific activity (2.5 Ci mmol-1) by a metal-catalyzed hydrogen-tritium exchange procedure using T2 gas. The material can be stored either as a solid or as a solution if the latter any release of tritium by back exchange can be easily monitored by 3H NMR spectroscopy. In our experience very little exchange occurs over several weeks of storage [51]. 

TABLE 11. The primary hydrogen-tritium kinetic isotope effects found in the reactions between various alkyl radicals and tributyltin hydride and tributyltin hydride-t... 

Table 21 The a-carbon-12/carbon-14 and secondary a-hydrogen-tritium KIEs for the Sn2 reactions between Y-substituted jV,/V-dimethylanilines and Z-substituted benzyl X-substituted benzenesulfonates in acetone at 35°C.a...

Saunders also used calculations on his model reaction (54) to determine the relationship between the secondary hydrogen-deuterium (secondary hydrogen-tritium) KIEs and secondary deuterium-tritium KIEs for doubly labelled substrates and to investigate how tunnelling affects this relationship. To obtain secondary KIEs that could be checked experimentally, Saunders calculated the secondary k lk% and k lk KIEs for the hypothetical E2 reaction of a pair of doubly labelled substrates [17] and [18]. 

Table 39 The secondary /3-hydrogen/tritium and deuterium/tritium KIEs for the E2 reactions of p-YC CLTCHjX at 50°Ca...

Table 40 The primary and secondary deuterium-tritium and hydrogen-tritium KIEs for the oxidation of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde with NAD+ and yeast alcohol dehydrogenase at 25°C.a...

Table 42 The secondary hydrogen-tritium and deuterium-tritium KIEs in the E2 reactions of several arylethyltrimethylammonium bromides at 50oC. ...

Finally, tunnelling does not affect the magnitude of the experimental / significantly. Therefore, converting the experimental (in the absence of tunnelling) secondary hydrogen-tritium KIE, into the secondary... 

Figure 10. Effect of Hydrogen, Tritium and Decay Helium on the J-Integral (J) vs. Change-in-Crack-Length (da) Behavior for Conventionally Forged Type 21-6-9 Stainless Steels.

Figure 2 Rate profiles for acid-catalyzed hydrogen-tritium exchange of (a) 2,4,6-trimethylpyridine and (b) its /V-methyl salt...

Hydrogen-Tritium Exchange Studies. The alloy to be studied was placed between porous nickel frits in a tube 4 in. long with %-in. i.d. This sample tube was inserted as part of a closed loop of y4-in. stainless steel tubing. 

Hydrogen-Tritium Exchange Studies. Isotope exchange experiments were conducted as described previously for the 7-phase hydrides (except TiMo2, that does not form the 7-phase). The results of the isotope separation determinations are shown in Table VI, where the parameter a is defined as ... 

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