Development of a secondary enclosure clean-up system for tritium systems

A prototypical metal hydride based recirculating glovebox cleanup system was commissioned and tested with tritium. Getter material SAES St 198 was selected for its ability to effectively remove tritium and trace impurities from inert or nitrogen glovebox cover gases and its ease of tritium recovery by heating to elevated temperatures. The Secondary Enclosure Clean-up (SEC) system utilizes a programmable controller for process control and system isolation and alarm in the event of an abnormal condition. The system was used to detect glovebox air in leakage by tracking the moisture level within the glovebox when the bed is bypassed. An aliquot of 0.5 Ci of tritium, intentionally released into a glovebox to demonstrate the system performance, was effectively removed by the getter bed in about 20 minutes or about 7 system time constants.