Tritium production

The reaction is predominantly a thermal neutron reaction. To produce in N Reactor would require a special loading such as an s- l or possibly the use of lithium control rods. Neither avenue has received serious study to date. 

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Lithium Oxide. Lithium oxide [12057-24-8], Li20, can be prepared by heating very pure lithium hydroxide to about 800°C under vacuum or by thermal decomposition of the peroxide (67). Lithium oxide is very reactive with carbon dioxide or water. It has been considered as a potential high temperature neutron target for tritium production (68). 

He is present in natural gases with a concentration of MO-7 of that of 4He and 1(T6 of the helium in the atmosphere. The separation is very expensive. Hence 3He is instead obtained as by-product of tritium production in nuclear reactors. Tritium in fact produces, by beta decay (the half life is 12.26 years), 3He the separation of 3He is obtained through a diffusion process. 

Heavy water - [NUCLEARREACTORS - ISOTOPE SEPARATION] (Vol 17) -use m tritium production [DEUTERIUM AND TRITIUM - TRITIUM] (Vol 8)... 

The manmade tritium, which reached several thousand TU in precipitation during 1963, completely masked the natural tritium production discussed in the previous section. The awareness of the potential importance of tritium to hydrology arose only after the nuclear tests began. By that time the natural tritium content in precipitation could no longer be measured, but a unique solution was found—measurements in stored and dated wine bottles,... 

Tritium production is accomplished in a fusion reactor blanket (or a fission reactor, as is now done to produce tritium for the weapons program). 

A notable exception to the above is the airborne effluent from spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and from tritium production. In this case, iodine-131 volatilizes from fuel reprocessing and must be removed by passing the... 

Lithium and Na are believed to be miscible under the operating conditions, and tritium production with a 50-50 Li-Na atomic mixture is calculated to be greater than 1.0. Lithium-potassium mixtures are also of interest for the Cauldron concept. 

For vapor-only tritium recovery, 99% of the tritium production (or 19.3 mg/s) must be processed by the vacuum system, and the required pressure is 100 times the allowable pressure for liquid-only recovery. Therefore, with a laser driver, tritium vapor pressure between 3.5 and 350 mPa (2.6 x 10 5 and 2.6 X 10 3 Torr) requires tritium recovery from both the liquid-circulation and the vacuum systems. For the heavy-ion-... 

It is feasible to breed more tritium in a lithium cooled reactor than is used in the reaction. The excess tritium can be used to start other reactors or in a reactor using some coolant other than lithium that prevents it from breeding its own tritium. Nature has been kind with the properties of lithium. It is an excellent choice for transferring heat from the reactor and it is the raw material needed for the continual production of more fuel. Both these functions can be provided by the use of liquid lithium as the blanket material. The isotopic composition of the lithium may be adjusted to provide the proper balance of lithium 6 and lithium 7 to optimum heat transfer and production of tritium. The lithium can also be diluted with metallic sodium or potassium to aid in adjusting the tritium production rate. 

The synthesis of lithium aluminates for tritium production requires formation of nanostructured phases. These can be made by solid-state reaction, by appropriate mixing of oxide powders [84] or by sol-gel methods [80, 85-87], One technique is the peroxide route where y-Al203 and LiC03 are dissolved in a peroxide (H202) solution. Evaporation of water and calcining the solid residue results in nanophase LiA102. 

MeV. The flux of neutrons with energies above this threshold is negligible in flssion reactors, so tritium production from reaction (8.52) is negligible. 

Table 8.10 Estimated tritium production in the coolant of a lOOtiMWe PWR...

The tritium production in a process heat HTGR is estimated to originate mostly from activation of Li-6 which is contained in the graphite, and with smaller fractions from fission and from He-3 activation. The release of tritium into the coolant is based on conservative assumptions, e.g., 10 % of the fission product tritium from defective coated particles. Estimated tritium production and release rates for a 170 MW(lh) HTR-MODUL plant are given listed in Table 3-1 [8]. 

Table 3-1 Tritium production and release rates as estimated for a 170 MW(th) process heat HTR-MODUL, from [8]...

Hitium source from Tritium production [1()3 Bq/s] ([%]) IHtium release into coolant [10 Bq/s] ([%]) ... 

Tritium collection. Tritium in air is usually in the form of water vapor and less commonly in the elemental or organic-bound forms. It is generated in nature by cosmic-ray interactions, and at nuclear reactors and tritium-production facilities by ternary fission and neutron activation. Tritium as HT tends to oxidize to water vapor in air. Conversion to and from organic-bound tritium occurs in biota (NCRP 1979). 

Type 304 stainless steel (containing 18%-20% chromium and 8%-10.5% nickel) is used in the tritium production reactor tanks, process water piping, and original process heat exchangers. This alloy resists most types of corrosion. 

Because of the crystal pattern of type 304 stainless steel in the reactor tank (tritium production facility), heat treatment is unsuitable for increasing the hardness and strength. 

Aluminum is a favorite material for applications in tritium production and reactor plants. This chapter discusses the applications of aluminum in a reactor plant. 

To that end Oppenheimer in May discussed tritium production with Groves and Du Font s Crawford Greenewalt. The chemical company had built a pilot-scale air-cooled pile at Oak Ridge that produced neutrons to spare Greenewalt agreed to put some of them to use bombarding lithium. 

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